arXiv subjects

G. Benenti

Publications and source records attributed to G. Benenti.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Quantum advantage bounds for a multipartite Gaussian battery

We demonstrate the possibility of a genuine quantum advantage in the efficiency of quantum batteries by analyzing a model that enables a consistent comparison between quantum and classical regimes. Our system consists of $N$ harmonic oscillator cells coupled to a common thermal reservoir, evolving through Gaussian states. We define the global efficiency as the ratio of extractable work (ergotropy) to stored energy, and derive analytical bounds that distinguish, in order of increasing efficiency, regimes characterized by classical squeezing, quantum squeezing without entanglement, and genuine entanglement. Moreover, numerical simulations support the emergence of a similar hierarchy for the thermodynamic efficiency, defined as the ratio between ergotropy and the total thermodynamic cost of the charging process.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Hybrid interacting quantum Hall thermal machine

We investigate a hybrid thermal machine based on a single closed quantum Hall edge channel forming a quantum dot. It is tunneling coupled with two quantum Hall states at $\nu = 2$ in contact with reservoirs at different temperatures and chemical potentials. One of these edge states is also driven out-of-equilibrium by means of a periodic train of Lorentzian voltage pulses. This device allows to explore various possible working regimes including the engine, the heat pump and the refrigerator configuration. Regions where two regimes coexist can also be identified. Moreover, the proposed set-up exhibits robustness and in some parameter regions also slightly enhanced performance in the presence of electron-electron interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

The thermoelectric conversion efficiency problem: Insights from the electron gas thermodynamics close to a phase transition

The bottleneck in modern thermoelectric power generation and cooling is the low energy conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials. The detrimental effects of lattice phonons on performance can be mitigated, but achieving a high thermoelectric power factor remains a major problem because the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity cannot be jointly increased. The conducting electron gas in thermoelectric materials is the actual working fluid that performs the energy conversion, so its properties determine the maximum efficiency that can theoretically be achieved. By relating the thermoelastic properties of the electronic working fluid to its transport properties (considering noninteracting electron systems), we show why the performance of conventional semiconductor materials is doomed to remain low. Analyzing the temperature dependence of the power factor theoretically in 2D systems and experimentally in a thin film, we find that in the fluctuation regimes of an electronic phase transition, the thermoelectric power factor can significantly increase owing to the increased compressibility of the electron gas. We also calculate the ideal thermoelectric conversion efficiency in noninteracting electron systems across a wide temperature range neglecting phonon effects and dissipative coupling to the heat source and sink. Our results show that driving the electronic system to the vicinity of a phase transition can indeed be an innovative route to strong efficiency enhancement, but at the cost of an extremely narrow temperature range for the use of such materials, which in turn precludes potential development for the desired wide range of thermoelectric energy conversion applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Dynamical blockade of a reservoir for optimal performances of a quantum battery

The development of fast and efficient quantum batteries is crucial for the prospects of quantum technologies. We show that both requirements are accomplished in the paradigmatic model of a harmonic oscillator strongly coupled to a highly non-Markovian thermal reservoir. At short times, a dynamical blockade of the reservoir prevents the leakage of energy towards its degrees of freedom, promoting a significant accumulation of energy in the battery with high efficiency. The possibility of implementing these conditions in $LC$ quantum circuits opens up new avenues for solid-state quantum batteries.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Influence of the Anderson transition on thermoelectric energy conversion in disordered electronic systems

So far, the efficiency of thermoelectric energy conversion remains low compared to traditional technologies, such as coal or nuclear. This low efficiency can be explained by connecting the thermoelastic properties of the electronic working fluid to its transport properties. Such connection also shows that operating close to electronic phase transitions can be an efficient way to boost the thermoelectric energy conversion. In this paper, we analyze thermoelectric efficiency close to the metal-insulator Anderson transition. Our results reveal the direct link between the thermoelectric and thermoelastic properties of Anderson-type systems. Moreover, the role of the conductivity critical exponent in the thermoelectric energy conversion is analysed. Finally, we show that relatively large values of the thermoelectric figure of merit may be obtained in the vicinity of the Anderson transition.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Speedup of adiabatic multiqubit state-transfer by ultrastrong coupling of matter and radiation

Ultrastrongly coupled quantum hardware may increase the speed of quantum state processing in distributed architectures, allowing to approach fault-tolerant threshold. We show that circuit QED architectures in the ultrastrong coupling regime, which has been recently demonstrated with superconductors, may show substantial speedup for a class of adiabatic protocols resilient to the main source of errors, namely the interplay of dynamical Casimir effect and cavity losses.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Closed-loop approach to thermodynamics

We present the closed loop approach to linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics considering a generic heat engine dissipatively connected to two temperature baths. The system is usually quite generally characterized by two parameters: the output power $P$ and the conversion efficiency $η$, to which we add a third one, the working frequency $ω$. We establish that a detailed understanding of the effects of the dissipative coupling on the energy conversion process, necessitates the knowledge of only two quantities: the system's feedback factor $β$ and its open-loop gain $A_{0}$, the product of which, $A_{0}β$, characterizes the interplay between the efficiency, the output power and the operating rate of the system. By placing thermodynamics analysis on a higher level of abstraction, the feedback loop approach provides a versatile and economical, hence a very efficient, tool for the study of \emph{any} conversion engine operation for which a feedback factor may be defined.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

The thermoelectric working fluid: thermodynamics and transport

Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much effort continues to be devoted to the design of new materials boasting improved transport properties that would make them of the electron crystal-phonon glass type of systems. On the other hand, there are comparatively few studies where a proper thermodynamic treatment of the electronic working fluid is proposed. The present article aims to contribute to bridge this gap by addressing both the thermodynamic and transport properties of the thermoelectric working fluid covering a variety of models, including interacting systems.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2015

Information transmission over an amplitude damping channel with an arbitrary degree of memory

We study the performance of a partially correlated amplitude damping channel acting on two qubits. We derive lower bounds for the single-shot classical capacity by studying two kinds of quantum ensembles, one which allows to maximize the Holevo quantity for the memoryless channel and the other allowing the same task but for the full-memory channel. In these two cases, we also show the amount of entanglement which is involved in achieving the maximum of the Holevo quantity. For the single-shot quantum capacity we discuss both a lower and an upper bound, achieving a good estimate for high values of the channel transmissivity. We finally compute the entanglement-assisted classical channel capacity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Dynamical Casimir effect and minimal temperature in quantum thermodynamics

We study the fundamental limitations of cooling to absolute zero for a qubit, interacting with a single mode of the electromagnetic field. Our results show that the dynamical Casimir effect, which is unavoidable in any finite-time thermodynamic cycle, forbids the attainability of the absolute zero of temperature, even in the limit of an infinite number of cycles.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Hidden entanglement, system-environment information flow and non-Markovianity

It is known that entanglement dynamics of two noninteracting qubits, locally subjected to classical environments, may exhibit revivals. A simple explanation of this phenomenon may be provided by using the concept of hidden entanglement, which signals the presence of entanglement that may be recovered without the help of nonlocal operations. Here we discuss the link between hidden entanglement and the (non-Markovian) flow of classical information between the system and the environment.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Recovering Entanglement by Local Operations

We investigate the phenomenon of bipartite entanglement revivals under purely local operations in systems subject to local and independent classical noise sources. We explain this apparent paradox in the physical ensemble description of the system state by introducing the concept of "hidden" entanglement, which indicates the amount of entanglement that cannot be exploited due to the lack of classical information on the system. For this reason this part of entanglement can be recovered without the action of non-local operations or back-transfer process. For two noninteracting qubits under a low-frequency stochastic noise, we show that entanglement can be recovered by local pulses only. We also discuss how hidden entanglement may provide new insights about entanglement revivals in non-Markovian dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Classical and quantum capacities of a fully correlated amplitude damping channel

We study information transmission over a fully correlated amplitude damping channel acting on two qubits. We derive the single-shot classical channel capacity and show that entanglement is needed to achieve the channel best performance. We discuss the degradability properties of the channel and evaluate the quantum capacity for any value of the noise parameter. We finally compute the entanglement-assisted classical channel capacity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Hidden entanglement in the presence of random telegraph dephasing noise

Entanglement dynamics of two noninteracting qubits, locally affected by random telegraph noise at pure dephasing, exhibits revivals. These revivals are not due to the action of any nonlocal operation, thus their occurrence may appear paradoxical since entanglement is by definition a nonlocal resource. We show that a simple explanation of this phenomenon may be provided by using the (recently introduced) concept of "hidden" entanglement, which signals the presence of entanglement that may be recovered with the only help of local operations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Transmission of classical and quantum information through a quantum memory channel with damping

We consider the transfer of classical and quantum information through a memory amplitude damping channel. Such a quantum channel is modeled as a damped harmonic oscillator, the interaction between the information carriers - a train of qubits - and the oscillator being of the Jaynes-Cummings kind. We prove that this memory channel is forgetful, so that quantum coding theorems hold for its capacities. We analyze entropic quantities relative to two uses of this channel. We show that memory effects improve the channel aptitude to transmit both classical and quantum information, and we investigate the mechanism by which memory acts in changing the channel transmission properties.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Comment on "Coherent Ratchets in Driven Bose-Einstein Condensates"

C. E. Creffield and F. Sols (Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 200601 (2009)) recently reported finite, directed time-averaged ratchet current, for a noninteracting quantum particle in a periodic potential even when time-reversal symmetry holds. As we explain in this Comment, this result is incorrect, that is, time-reversal symmetry implies a vanishing current.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2009

Quantum mechanics in phase space: First order comparison between the Wigner and the Fermi function

The Fermi g_F(x,p) function provides a phase space description of quantum mechanics conceptually different from that based on the the Wigner function W(x,p). In this paper, we show that for a peaked wave packet the g_F(x,p)=0 curve approximately corresponds to a phase space contour level of the Wigner function and provides a satisfactory description of the wave packet's size and shape. Our results show that the Fermi function is an interesting tool to investigate quantum fluctuations in the semiclassical regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Enhancement of transmission rates in quantum memory channels with damping

We consider the transfer of quantum information down a single-mode quantum transmission line. Such quantum channel is modeled as a damped harmonic oscillator, the interaction between the information carriers -a train of N qubits- and the oscillator being of the Jaynes-Cummings kind. Memory effects appear if the state of the oscillator is not reset after each channel use. We show that the setup without resetting is convenient in order to increase the transmission rates, both for the transfer of quantum and classical private information. Our results can be applied to the micromaser.

quant-ph↗