SciPost Physics

SciPost Phys. 12, 168 (2022) · published 20 May 2022

• doi: 10.21468/SciPostPhys.12.5.168
• pdf
• BiBTeX
• RIS
• Submissions/Reports
• 

Abstract

Fluctuations of thermodynamic observables, such as heat and work, contain relevant information on the underlying physical process. These fluctuations are however not taken into account in the traditional laws of thermodynamics. While the second law is extended to fluctuating systems by the celebrated fluctuation theorems, the first law is generally believed to hold even in the presence of fluctuations. Here we show that in the presence of quantum fluctuations, also the first law of thermodynamics may break down. This happens because quantum mechanics imposes constraints on the knowledge of heat and work. To illustrate our results, we provide a detailed case-study of work and heat fluctuations in a quantum heat engine based on a circuit QED architecture. We find probabilistic violations of the first law and show that they are closely connected to quantum signatures related to negative quasi-probabilities. Our results imply that in the presence of quantum fluctuations, the first law of thermodynamics may not be applicable to individual experimental runs.

• Shastri et al., Controlling work output and coherence in finite-time quantum Otto engines through monitoring
  Phys. Rev. E 109, 014102 (2024) [Crossref]
• Aumann et al., CircuitQ: an open-source toolbox for superconducting circuits
  New J. Phys. 24, 093012 (2022) [Crossref]
• Portugal et al., Photon emission statistics of a driven microwave cavity
  Phys. Rev. Research 5, 033091 (2023) [Crossref]
• Mohanta et al., Full statistics of nonequilibrium heat and work for many-body quantum Otto engines and universal bounds: A nonequilibrium Green's function approach
  Phys. Rev. E 108, 064127 (2023) [Crossref]
• Hovhannisyan et al., Energy conservation and fluctuation theorem are incompatible for quantum work
  Quantum 8, 1336 1336 (2024) [Crossref]
• Kimuya, Rethinking Energy Conservation and Generation for Sustainable Solutions-An Innovative Energy Circuitry Approach
  SSRN Journal, (2023) [Crossref]
• Myers et al., Quantum Heat Engines with Singular Interactions
  Symmetry 13, 978 (2021) [Crossref]
• Singh et al., Thermodynamic uncertainty relation in nondegenerate and degenerate maser heat engines
  Phys. Rev. A 108, 032203 (2023) [Crossref]
• Janovitch et al., Wave-particle duality in a quantum heat engine
  Phys. Rev. Research 5, L042007 (2023) [Crossref]