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Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics

Quantum finite time availability for parametric oscillators

Karl Heinz Hoffmann, Kim Schmidt, Peter Salamon

Published May 20, 2015• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The availability of a thermodynamic system out of equilibrium with its environment describes its ability to perform work in a reversible process which brings it to equilibrium with this environment. Processes in finite time can usually not be performed reversibly thus leading to unavoidable losses. In order to account for these losses the concept of finite time availability was introduced. We here add a new feature through the introduction of quantum finite time availability for an ensemble of parametric oscillators. For such systems there exists a certain critical time, the FEAT time. Quantum finite time availability quantifies the available work from processes which are shorter than the FEAT time of the oscillator ensemble.

DOI
10.1515/jnet-2015-0025

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Abstract The availability of a thermodynamic system out of equilibrium with its environment describes its ability to perform work in a reversible process which brings it to equilibrium with this environment. Processes in finite time can usually not be performed reversibly thus leading to unavoidable losses. In order to account for these losses the concept of finite time availability was introduced. We here add a new feature through the introduction of quantum finite time availability for an ensemble of parametric oscillators. For such systems there exists a certain critical time, the FEAT time. Quantum finite time availability quantifies the available work from processes which are shorter than the FEAT time of the oscillator ensemble.
Classically, availability refers to the work available in any reversible process that brings about equilibrium between the system and its environment. Here we introduce an additional meaning of availability as the maximum work associated with the change of an external parameter in the Hamiltonian of a quantum system. This availability can be gained in a FEAT process and for times larger than or equal to the FEAT time, there exists an optimal control that achieves the available work. For shorter times, quantum friction effects are unavoidable and the available work is thereby lowered. This finite-time availability is quantified here as a function of the time available.
The availability of a thermodynamic system with respect to an environment is the maximum work, which can be gained from bringing it into equilibrium with its environment by a reversible process. If the process has to proceed in finite time, there will be unavoidable losses diminishing the availability; this consequence is captured by the Finite-Time Availability. Here we consider the consequences of an availability extracting process for a paradigmatic quantum system, the parametric harmonic oscillator. Differences and similarities between its Quantum Finite-Time Availability and the classical Finite-Time Availability of an ideal gas in a cylinder with a piston are discussed.
In this article we use geometric optimal control to completely solve the problem of minimum-time transitions between thermal equilibrium and fixed average energy states of the quantum parametric oscillator, a system which has been extensively used to model quantum heat engines and refrigerators. We subsequently use the obtained results to find the minimum driving time for a quantum refrigerator and the quantum finite-time availability of the parametric oscillator, i.e., the potential work which can be extracted from this system by a very short finite-time process.
This paper considers the problem of obtaining maximum work from a conservative quantum system corresponding to a given change in an external parameter in the Hamiltonian. The example we present is a non-interacting collection of harmonic oscillators with a shared frequency omega which changes from a given initial to a given final value. The example is interesting for its role in experiments at ultra-low temperatures and for probing finite-time versions of the third law of thermodynamics. It is also the simplest system displaying quantum friction, which represents loss mechanisms in any reversible prelude to a thermal process. The example leads to a new type of availability. It is also the first example of a minimum time for transitions between thermal states of a thermodynamic system.
In most studies for the quantification of the third law of thermodynamics, the minimum temperature which can be achieved with a long but finite-time process scales as a negative power of the process duration. In this article, we use our recent complete solution for the optimal control problem of the quantum parametric oscillator to show that the minimum temperature which can be obtained in this system scales exponentially with the available time. The present work is expected to motivate further research in the active quest for absolute zero.
Investigation of states with a periodic time dependence of physical quantities attracts a considerable interest now. Although it has been proposed initially that such states (coined Quantum Time Crystals) might be macroscopic and thermodynamically stable, results of a more careful study of the problem seemed to indicate that quantum time crystals could be realized only in systems out of equilibrium. Here we show that, in contrast to the general belief, thermodynamically stable macroscopic quantum time crystals can exist. The order parameter of this new state of matter is periodic in both real and imaginary time but its average over the phase of the oscillations equals zero. At the same time, correlation functions characterizing physical quantities oscillate periodically in time without any decay. An alternative interpretation of the results is based on a concept of an operator order parameter. Calculations are performed for a rather general microscopic model that may in particular be suitable for describing the pseudogap state in superconducting cuprates.