Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Mark T. Mitchison

Publications and source records attributed to Mark T. Mitchison.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Comment on "Thermodynamic Principle for Quantum Metrology"

In Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 200501 (2022) the authors consider the thermodynamic cost of quantum metrology. One of the main results is $\mathcal{S} \geq \log(2) \| h_λ\|^{-2} F_Q [ψ_λ]$, which purports to relate the Shannon entropy $\mathcal{S}$ of an optimal measurement (i.e., in the basis of the symmetric logarithmic derivative) to the quantum Fisher information $F_Q$ of the pure state $|ψ_λ\rangle$. However, we show that in the setting considered by the authors we have $\mathcal{S} = \log(2)$ and $\| h_λ\|^{2} = \max_{ψ_λ} F_Q[ψ_λ]$, so that their inequality reduces to the trivial inequality $\max_{ψ_λ} F_Q[ψ_λ] \geq F_Q[ψ_λ]$, and does not in fact relate the entropy $\mathcal{S}$ to the quantum Fisher information. Moreover, for pure state quantum metrology, there exist optimal measurements (though not in the basis of the symmetric logarithmic derivative) for which $0 \leq \mathcal{S} \leq \log(2)$, leading to violations of the inequality for some states $|ψ_λ\rangle$.

quant-ph↗

Dephasing-enhanced performance in quasiperiodic thermal machines

Understanding and controlling quantum transport in low-dimensional systems is pivotal for heat management at the nanoscale. One promising strategy to obtain the desired transport properties is to engineer particular spectral structures. In this work we are interested in quasiperiodic disorder - incommensurate with the underlying periodicity of the lattice - which induces fractality in the energy spectrum. A well known example is the Fibonacci model which, despite being non-interacting, yields anomalous diffusion with a continuously varying dynamical exponent smoothly crossing over from superdiffusive to subdiffusive regime as a function of potential strength. We study the finite-temperature electric and heat transport of this model in linear response in the absence and in the presence of dephasing noise due to inelastic scattering. The dephasing causes both thermal and electric transport to become diffusive, thereby making thermal and electrical conductivities finite in the thermodynamic limit. Thus, in the subdiffusive regime it leads to enhancement of transport. We find that the thermal and electric conductivities have multiple peaks as a function of dephasing strength. Remarkably, we observe that the thermal and electrical conductivities are not proportional to each other, a clear violation of Wiedemann-Franz law, and the position of their maxima can differ. We argue that this feature can be utilized to enhance performance of quantum thermal machines. In particular, we show that by tuning the strength of the dephasing noise we can enhance the performance of the device in regimes where it acts as an autonomous refrigerator.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

Robust nonequilibrium edge currents with and without band topology

We study two-dimensional bosonic and fermionic lattice systems under nonequilibrium conditions corresponding to a sharp gradient of temperature imposed by two thermal baths. In particular, we consider a lattice model with broken time-reversal symmetry that exhibits both topologically trivial and nontrivial phases. Using a nonperturbative Green function approach, we characterize the nonequilibrium current distribution in different parameter regimes. For both bosonic and fermionic systems, we find chiral edge currents that are robust against coupling to reservoirs and to the presence of defects on the boundary or in the bulk. This robustness not only originates from topological effects at zero temperature but, remarkably, also persists as a result of dissipative symmetries in regimes where band topology plays no role. Chirality of the edge currents implies that energy locally flows against the temperature gradient without any external work input. In the fermionic case, there is also a regime with topologically protected boundary currents, which nonetheless do not circulate around all system edges.

quant-ph↗

Taking the temperature of a pure quantum state

Temperature is a deceptively simple concept that still raises deep questions at the forefront of quantum physics research. The observation of thermalisation in completely isolated quantum systems, such as cold-atom quantum simulators, implies that a temperature can be assigned even to individual, pure quantum states. Here, we propose a scheme to measure the temperature of such pure states through quantum interference. Our proposal involves interferometry of an auxiliary qubit probe, which is prepared in a superposition state and subsequently decoheres due to weak coupling with a closed, thermalised many-body system. Using only a few basic assumptions about chaotic quantum systems -- namely, the eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis and the emergence of hydrodynamics at long times -- we show that the qubit undergoes pure exponential decoherence at a rate that depends on the temperature of its surroundings. We verify our predictions by numerical experiments on a quantum spin chain that thermalises after absorbing energy from a periodic drive. Our work provides a general method to measure the temperature of isolated, strongly interacting systems under minimal assumptions.

quant-ph↗

Charging a quantum battery with linear feedback control

Energy storage is a basic physical process with many applications. When considering this task at the quantum scale, it becomes important to optimise the non-equilibrium dynamics of energy transfer to the storage device or battery. Here, we tackle this problem using the methods of quantum feedback control. Specifically, we study the deposition of energy into a quantum battery via an auxiliary charger. The latter is a driven-dissipative two-level system subjected to a homodyne measurement whose output signal is fed back linearly into the driving field amplitude. We explore two different control strategies, aiming to stabilise either populations or quantum coherences in the state of the charger. In both cases, linear feedback is shown to counteract the randomising influence of environmental noise and allow for stable and effective battery charging. We analyse the effect of realistic control imprecisions, demonstrating that this good performance survives inefficient measurements and small feedback delays. Our results highlight the potential of continuous feedback for the control of energetic quantities in the quantum regime.

quant-ph↗

Extractable work in quantum electromechanics

Recent experiments have demonstrated the generation of coherent mechanical oscillations in a suspended carbon nanotube, which are driven by an electric current through the device above a certain voltage threshold, in close analogy with a lasing transition. We investigate this phenomenon from the perspective of work extraction, by modelling a nano-electromechanical device as a quantum flywheel or battery that converts electrical power into stored mechanical energy. We introduce a microscopic model that qualitatively matches the experimental finding, and compute the Wigner function of the quantum vibrational mode in its non-equilibrium steady-state. We characterise the threshold for self-sustained oscillations using two approaches to quantifying work deposition in non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics: the ergotropy and the non-equilibrium free energy. We find that ergotropy serves as an order parameter for the phonon lasing transition. The framework we employ to describe work extraction is general and widely transferable to other mesoscopic quantum devices.

quant-ph↗

Multipartite quantum correlations in a two-mode Dicke model

We analyze multipartite correlations in a generalized Dicke model involving two optical modes interacting with an ensemble of two-level atoms. In particular, we examine correlations beyond the standard bipartite entanglement and derive exact results in the thermodynamic limit. The model presents two superradiant phases involving the spontaneous breaking of either a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ or $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetry. The latter is characterized by the emergence of a Goldstone excitation, found to significantly affect the correlation profiles. Focusing on the correlations between macroscopic subsystems, we analyze both the mutual information as well as the entanglement of formation for all possible bipartitions among the optical and matter degrees of freedom. It is found that while each mode entangles with the atoms, the bipartite entanglement between the modes is zero, and they share only classical correlations and quantum discord. We also study the monogamy of multipartite entanglement and show that there exists genuine tripartite entanglement, i.e. quantum correlations that the atoms share with the two modes but that are not shared with them individually, only in the vicinity of the critical lines. Our results elucidate the intricate correlation structures underlying superradiant phase transitions in multimode systems.

quant-ph↗

Out-of-time-order correlations and the fine structure of eigenstate thermalisation

Out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) have become established as a tool to characterise quantum information dynamics and thermalisation in interacting quantum many-body systems. It was recently argued that the expected exponential growth of the OTOC is connected to the existence of correlations beyond those encoded in the standard Eigenstate Thermalisation Hypothesis (ETH). We show explicitly, by an extensive numerical analysis of the statistics of operator matrix elements in conjunction with a detailed study of OTOC dynamics, that the OTOC is indeed a precise tool to explore the fine details of the ETH. In particular, while short-time dynamics is dominated by correlations, the long-time saturation behaviour gives clear indications of an operator-dependent energy scale $ω_{\textrm{GOE}}$ associated to the emergence of an effective Gaussian random matrix theory. We provide an estimation of the finite-size scaling of $ω_{\textrm{GOE}}$ for the general class of observables composed of sums of local operators in the infinite-temperature regime and found linear behaviour for the models considered.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Quantum heat statistics with time-evolving matrix product operators

We present a numerically exact method to compute the full counting statistics of heat transfer in non-Markovian open quantum systems, which is based on the time-evolving matrix product operator (TEMPO) algorithm. This approach is applied to the paradigmatic spin-boson model in order to calculate the mean and fluctuations of the heat transferred to the environment during thermal equilibration. We show that system-reservoir correlations make a significant contribution to the heat statistics at low temperature and present a variational theory that quantitatively explains our numerical results. We also demonstrate a fluctuation-dissipation relation connecting the mean and variance of the heat distribution at high temperature. Our results reveal that system-bath interactions make a significant contribution to heat transfer even when the dynamics of the open system is effectively Markovian. The method presented here provides a flexible and general tool to predict the fluctuations of heat transfer in open quantum systems in non-perturbative regimes.

quant-ph↗

Time periodicity from randomness in quantum systems

Many complex systems can spontaneously oscillate under non-periodic forcing. Such self-oscillators are commonplace in biological and technological assemblies where temporal periodicity is needed, such as the beating of a human heart or the vibration of a cello string. While self-oscillation is well understood in classical non-linear systems and their quantized counterparts, the spontaneous emergence of periodicity in quantum systems without a semi-classical limit is more elusive. Here, we show that this behavior can emerge within the repeated-interaction description of open quantum systems. Specifically, we consider a many-body quantum system that undergoes dissipation due to sequential coupling with auxiliary systems at random times. We develop dynamical symmetry conditions that guarantee an oscillatory long-time state in this setting. Our rigorous results are illustrated with specific spin models, which could be implemented in trapped-ion quantum simulators.

quant-ph↗

Thermodynamics of precision in quantum nano-machines

Fluctuations strongly affect the dynamics and functionality of nanoscale thermal machines. Recent developments in stochastic thermodynamics have shown that fluctuations in many far-from-equilibrium systems are constrained by the rate of entropy production via so-called thermodynamic uncertainty relations. These relations imply that increasing the reliability or precision of an engine's power output comes at a greater thermodynamic cost. Here we study the thermodynamics of precision for small thermal machines in the quantum regime. In particular, we derive exact relations between the power, power fluctuations, and entropy production rate for several models of few-qubit engines (both autonomous and cyclic) that perform work on a quantised load. Depending on the context, we find that quantum coherence can either help or hinder where power fluctuations are concerned. We discuss design principles for reducing such fluctuations in quantum nano-machines, and propose an autonomous three-qubit engine whose power output for a given entropy production is more reliable than would be allowed by any classical Markovian model.

quant-ph↗

Quantum Coherence and Ergotropy

Constraints on work extraction are fundamental to our operational understanding of the thermodynamics of both classical and quantum systems. In the quantum setting, finite-time control operations typically generate coherence in the instantaneous energy eigenbasis of the dynamical system. Thermodynamic cycles can, in principle, be designed to extract work from this non-equilibrium resource. Here, we isolate and study the quantum coherent component to the work yield in such protocols. Specifically, we identify a coherent contribution to the ergotropy (the maximum amount of unitarily extractable work via cyclical variation of Hamiltonian parameters). We show this by dividing the optimal transformation into an incoherent operation and a coherence extraction cycle. We obtain bounds for both the coherent and incoherent parts of the extractable work and discuss their saturation in specific settings. Our results are illustrated with several examples, including finite-dimensional systems and bosonic Gaussian states that describe recent experiments on quantum heat engines with a quantized load.

quant-ph↗

Quantum fluctuations hinder finite-time information erasure near the Landauer limit

Information is physical but information is also processed in finite time. Where computing protocols are concerned, finite-time processing in the quantum regime can dynamically generate coherence. Here we show that this can have significant thermodynamic implications. We demonstrate that quantum coherence generated in the energy eigenbasis of a system undergoing a finite-time information erasure protocol yields rare events with extreme dissipation. These fluctuations are of purely quantum origin. By studying the full statistics of the dissipated heat in the slow driving limit, we prove that coherence provides a non-negative contribution to all statistical cumulants. Using the simple and paradigmatic example of single bit erasure, we show that these extreme dissipation events yield distinct, experimentally distinguishable signatures.

quant-ph↗

In situ thermometry of a cold Fermi gas via dephasing impurities

The precise measurement of low temperatures is a challenging, important and fundamental task for quantum science. In particular, in-situ thermometry is highly desirable for cold atomic systems due to their potential for quantum simulation. Here we demonstrate that the temperature of a non-interacting Fermi gas can be accurately inferred from the non-equilibrium dynamics of impurities immersed within it, using an interferometric protocol and established experimental methods. Adopting tools from the theory of quantum parameter estimation, we show that our proposed scheme achieves optimal precision in the relevant temperature regime for degenerate Fermi gases in current experiments. We also discover an intriguing trade-off between measurement time and thermometric precision that is controlled by the impurity-gas coupling, with weak coupling leading to the greatest sensitivities. This is explained as a consequence of the slow decoherence associated with the onset of the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe, which dominates the gas dynamics following its local interaction with the immersed impurity.

quant-ph↗

Tensor-network method to simulate strongly interacting quantum thermal machines

We present a methodology to simulate the quantum thermodynamics of thermal machines which are built from an interacting working medium in contact with fermionic reservoirs at fixed temperature and chemical potential. Our method works at finite temperature, beyond linear response and weak system-reservoir coupling, and allows for non-quadratic interactions in the working medium. The method uses mesoscopic reservoirs, continuously damped towards thermal equilibrium, in order to represent continuum baths and a novel tensor network algorithm to simulate the steady-state thermodynamics. Using the example of a quantum-dot heat engine, we demonstrate that our technique replicates the well known Landauer-Büttiker theory for efficiency and power. We then go beyond the quadratic limit to demonstrate the capability of our method by simulating a three-site machine with non-quadratic interactions. Remarkably, we find that such interactions lead to power enhancement, without being detrimental to the efficiency. Furthermore, we demonstrate the capability of our method to tackle complex many-body systems by extracting the super-diffusive exponent for high-temperature transport in the isotropic Heisenberg model. Finally, we discuss transport in the gapless phase of the anisotropic Heisenberg model at finite temperature and its connection to charge conjugation-parity, going beyond the predictions of single-site boundary driving configurations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Speed-ups to isothermality: Enhanced quantum thermal machines through control of the system-bath coupling

Isothermal transformations are minimally dissipative but slow processes, as the system needs to remain close to thermal equilibrium along the protocol. Here, we show that smoothly modifying the system-bath interaction can significantly speed up such transformations. In particular, we construct protocols where the overall dissipation $W_{\rm diss}$ decays with the total time $τ_{\rm tot}$ of the protocol as $W_{\rm diss} \propto τ_{\rm tot}^{-2α-1}$, where each value $α> 0$ can be obtained by a suitable modification of the interaction, whereas $α=0$ corresponds to a standard isothermal process where the system-bath interaction remains constant. Considering heat engines based on such speed-ups, we show that the corresponding efficiency at maximum power interpolates between the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency for $α=0$ and the Carnot efficiency for $α\to \infty$. Analogous enhancements are obtained for the coefficient of performance of refrigerators. We confirm our analytical results with two numerical examples where $α= 1/2$, namely the time-dependent Caldeira-Leggett and resonant-level models, with strong system-environment correlations taken fully into account. We highlight the possibility of implementing our proposed speed-ups with ultracold atomic impurities and mesoscopic electronic devices.

quant-ph↗

Tunable phonon induced steady state coherence in a double quantum dot

Charge qubits can be created and manipulated in solid-state double-quantum-dot (DQD) platforms. Typically, these systems are strongly affected by quantum noise stemming from coupling to substrate phonons. This is usually assumed to lead to decoherence towards steady states that are diagonal in the energy eigenbasis. In this article we show, to the contrary, that due to the presence of phonons the equilibrium steady state of the DQD charge qubit spontaneously exhibits coherence in the energy eigenbasis with high purity. The magnitude and phase of the coherence can be controlled by tuning the Hamiltonian parameters of the qubit. The coherence is also robust to presence of fermionic leads. In addition, we show that this steady-state coherence can be used to drive an auxiliary cavity mode coupled to the DQD.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quasiperiodic quantum heat engines with a mobility edge

Steady-state thermoelectric machines convert heat into work by driving a thermally-generated charge current against a voltage gradient. In this work, we propose a new class of steady-state heat engines operating in the quantum regime, where a quasi-periodic tight-binding model that features a mobility edge forms the working medium. In particular, we focus on a generalization of the paradigmatic Aubrey-André-Harper (AAH) model, known to display a single-particle mobility edge that separates the energy spectrum into regions of completely delocalized and localized eigenstates. Remarkably, these two regions can be exploited in the context of steady-state heat engines as they correspond to ballistic and insulating transport regimes. This model also presents the advantage that the position of the mobility edge can be controlled via a single parameter in the Hamiltonian. We exploit this highly tunable energy filter, along with the peculiar spectral structure of quasiperiodic systems, to demonstrate large thermoelectric effects, exceeding existing predictions by several orders of magnitude. This opens the route to a new class of highly efficient and versatile quasi-periodic steady-state heat engines, with a possible implementation using ultracold neutral atoms in bichromatic optical lattices.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗