Quantum measurement is ultimately a physical process, resulting from an interaction between the measured system and a measurement apparatus. Considering the physical process of measurement within a thermodynamic context naturally raises the following question: how can the work and heat resulting from the measurement process be interpreted? In the present manuscript, we model the measurement process for an arbitrary discrete observable as a measurement scheme. Here, the system to be measured is first unitarily coupled with a measurement apparatus, and subsequently the apparatus is measured by a pointer observable, thus producing a definite measurement outcome. The work can therefore be interpreted as the change in internal energy of the compound of system-plus-apparatus due to the unitary coupling. By the first law of thermodynamics, the heat is the subsequent change in internal energy of this compound due to the measurement of the pointer observable. However, in order for the apparatus to serve as a stable record for the measurement outcomes, the pointer observable must commute with the Hamiltonian, and its implementation must be repeatable. Given these minimal requirements, we show that the heat will necessarily be a classically fluctuating quantity.
Quantum measurement is ultimately a physical process, resulting from an interaction between the measured system and a measurement apparatus. Considering the physical process of measurement within a thermodynamic context naturally raises the following question: how can the work and heat resulting from the measurement process be interpreted? In the present manuscript, we model the measurement process for an arbitrary discrete observable as a measurement scheme. Here, the system to be measured is first unitarily coupled with a measurement apparatus, and subsequently the apparatus is measured by a pointer observable, thus producing a definite measurement outcome. The work can therefore be interpreted as the change in internal energy of the compound of system-plus-apparatus due to the unitary coupling. By the first law of thermodynamics, the heat is the subsequent change in internal energy of this compound due to the measurement of the pointer observable. However, in order for the apparatus to serve as a stable record for the measurement outcomes, the pointer observable must commute with the Hamiltonian, and its implementation must be repeatable. Given these minimal requirements, we show that the heat will necessarily be a classically fluctuating quantity.
Considering a general microscopic model for a quantum measuring apparatus comprising a quantum probe coupled to a thermal bath, we analyze the energetic resources necessary for the realization of a quantum measurement, which includes the creation of system-apparatus correlations, the irreversible transition to a statistical mixture of definite outcomes, and the apparatus resetting. Crucially, we do not resort to another quantum measurement to capture the emergence of objective measurement results, but rather exploit the properties of the thermal bath which redundantly records the measurement result in its degrees of freedom, naturally implementing the paradigm of quantum Darwinism. In practice, this model allows us to perform a quantitative thermodynamic analysis of the measurement process. From the expression of the second law, we show how the minimal required work depends on the energy variation of the system being measured plus information-theoretic quantities characterizing the performance of the measurement – efficiency and completeness. Additionally, we show that it is possible to perform a thermodynamically reversible measurement, thus reaching the minimal work expenditure, and provide the corresponding protocol. Finally, for finite-time measurement protocols, we illustrate the increasing work cost induced by rising entropy production inherent in finite-time thermodynamic processes. This highlights an emerging trade-off between velocity of the measurement and work cost, on top of a trade-off between efficiency of the measurement and work cost. We apply those findings to bring new insights in the thermodynamic balance of the measurement-powered quantum engines.
Quantum measurements are known to affect the state of the measured system. Such a measurement backaction is due to the interaction of the quantum system with the measuring device. When the measured observable and the system's Hamiltonian do not commute, the backaction can lead to a mean energy change of the system. This energy change has been dubbed "quantum heat" and, in association with feedback processes and/or the interaction with thermal bath(s), proves to be a genuinely quantum resource to fuel new kinds quantum engines. We propose such a measurement powered engine exploiting the non-commutativity of local and non-local operations on a bipartite quantum system.We then investigate the origin of the quantum heat. Even if one cannot model the full dynamics of a measurement due to the collapse of the wavefunction, the energetic aspects can still be investigated by modeling the so-called pre-measurement. During this step, the system interacts and gets correlated with a quantum system which can be viewed as a small part of the measuring apparatus and called the quantum meter. Ideally, at the end of this process, the system's reduced state will be fully decohered in the measurement basis, thus corresponding to the averaged collapsed output states given by the measurement postulate. We find that the quantum heat received by the measured system corresponds to the energy necessary to turn off the coupling between the meter and the system. Using generalized definitions of heat and work, we moreover characterize the work and heat nature of these energy exchanges.Tracing the source of this energy one step further, we propose an autonomous description of a measurement. This is done by considering a flying qubit measured by the quantum field of the cavity it crosses. The interaction being position dependent, the kinetic degree of freedom is providing the required energy to switch on and off the interaction between the qubit and the meter field. A full quantum treatment allows us to evaluate the impact of the finite spatial and momentum extension of the qubit wavepacket. Since the kinetic degree of freedom can be affected by the interaction, it does not simply generate a time dependent Hamiltonian for the other degrees of freedom. We find the correction to this ideal dynamic and analyse its consequences on the nature of the energy fluxes. %spread/extension/broadnessTaking the opposite point of view, we compare the measurement cost of a qubit by a field propagating in a waveguide, depending on the initial state of the field. In the context of a circuit quantum electrodynamics setup, we find that thermal and coherent fields induce the same backaction on the qubit given the same energy constraints.The results presented and discussed in this thesis contribute to unravel the mysterious effects and mechanisms due to quantum measurements. Notably, they give an outlook to further analyse quantum measurement-based engines and to understand the energetic resource that measurements cost and constitute at the same time.
Operational quantum stochastic thermodynamics is a recently proposed theory to study the thermodynamics of open systems based on the rigorous notion of a quantum stochastic process or quantum causal model. In there, a stochastic trajectory is defined solely in terms of experimentally accessible measurement results, which serve as the basis to define the corresponding thermodynamic quantities. In contrast to this observer-dependent point of view, a `black box', which evolves unitarily and can simulate a quantum causal model, is constructed here. The quantum thermodynamics of this big isolated system can then be studied using widely accepted arguments from statistical mechanics. It is shown that the resulting definitions of internal energy, heat, work, and entropy have a natural extension to the trajectory level. The canonical choice of them coincides with the proclaimed definitions of operational quantum stochastic thermodynamics, thereby providing strong support in favour of that novel framework. However, a few remaining ambiguities in the definition of stochastic work and heat are also discovered and in light of these findings some other proposals are reconsidered. Finally, it is demonstrated that the first and second law hold for an even wider range of scenarios than previously thought, covering a large class of quantum causal models based solely on a single assumption about the initial system-bath state.
The quantum mechanical measurement process is analysed in detail, especially from the group theoretical point of view. The first three chapters review the results obtained before briefly. In §1, the classical theory of measurement, originated by von Neumann, is birefly described. The importance of considering more general schemes of measurements than the original one is, however, emphasized. In §2, the role of conservation laws, in imposing limitations on the possibility of measurements, is discussed. Accurately measurable quantities are defined in this context. In §3, the role of conservation laws is further analysed. It is shown that the conserved quantity of the apparatus cannot be used for a “pointer reading.” The following two chapters discuss the nature of the exactly measurable quantities. In §4, exactly measurable quantities are explicitly determined. It is shown that the measurement of projection operators in the Hilbert space of the object which commute with the operators of the restricted Poincaré group give all the information on the states of the object that can be obtained by accurate measurements. In §5, the measurement on objects which are composed of more than one particle is discussed. The last chapter, §6, deals with approximately measurable quantities, but no complete estimate of the unavoidable inaccuracy of the measurement of these is obtained. It also contains some concluding remarks.
We build a framework for the thermodynamics of macroscopic quantum systems. In contrast with approaches requiring access to the full density matrix, our framework relies on a coarse-grained description, based on measurement statistics of a few observables. When these observables commute, the outcomes define classical macrostates whose entropy is quantified by observational entropy, accounting for uncertainty about both the macrostate and the microstate within it. We extend this notion to non-commuting observables forming a subalgebra of the operator space, and use Jaynes' principle to define an algebra-dependent entropy interpolating between von Neumann and observational entropies. Given initial and final measurement sets, connected by internal and/or environment-induced dynamics, we derive a second law for the coarse-grained dynamics. Unlike formulations based on von Neumann entropy, our inequality captures irreversibility from both non-unitary environment-induced dynamics and internal equilibration. It takes the usual form of a positive entropy production when the system is initially at internal equilibrium, while correction terms capture nonequilibrium resources ignored by the coarse-graining. We also derive fluctuation theorems for coarse-grained thermodynamic quantities. Along a quasi-static path of measurement schemes, we identify quantum macroscopic notions of work and heat fulfilling the first and second laws, including an additional work contribution from manipulating the algebra to which the system is confined, through external constraints or quantum measurement backaction. Finally, we apply our framework to examples illustrating the impact of varying the coarse-graining scheme. Our approach unifies macroscopic and stochastic thermodynamics in a genuinely quantum framework, laying the basis for a versatile, experimentally friendly toolbox to analyze complex quantum dynamics.