Local effective dynamics of quantum systems: A generalized approach to work and heat
By computing the local energy expectation values with respect to some local measurement basis we show that for any quantum system there are two fundamentally different contributions: changes in energy that do not alter the local von Neumann entropy and changes that do. We identify the former as work...
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Published in | Europhysics letters Vol. 83; no. 3; pp. 30008 - 30008(5) |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
IOP Publishing
01.08.2008
EDP Sciences |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | By computing the local energy expectation values with respect to some local measurement basis we show that for any quantum system there are two fundamentally different contributions: changes in energy that do not alter the local von Neumann entropy and changes that do. We identify the former as work and the latter as heat. Since our derivation makes no assumptions on the system Hamiltonian or its state, the result is valid even for states arbitrarily far from equilibrium. Examples are discussed ranging from the classical limit to purely quantum-mechanical scenarios, i.e. where the Hamiltonian and the density operator do not commute. |
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Bibliography: | publisher-ID:epl11102 istex:14CD2BC949CB83571B4BAD306415F7663E161EFB ark:/67375/80W-01F0Q8NP-3 ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0295-5075 1286-4854 |
DOI: | 10.1209/0295-5075/83/30008 |