1 of 22

On the Thermodynamic Costs of Pure Dephasing in Quantum Heat Engines

Institute of Theoretical�Physics Center for Quantum�BioSciences Ulm University

Martin B Plenio

Talk based on: Weber, Huelga, Plenio, ArXiv:2312.05375

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

2 of 22

Heat Engines

Quasistatic Operation versus the Real World

© actuateminds

Textbook heat engines

Very close to equilibrium which requires

quasistatic operation, i.e. vanishing power.

Carnot efficiency

Real world heat engines are different.

Lots of imperfections but also, we require them�to operate at finite power.

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

3 of 22

Sources of Inefficiencies

The Curzon-Ahlborn Bound for Carnot Cycle

In typical materials the heat flow is proportional to the temperature difference

Curzon, Ahlborn, Am. J. Phys. 1975�Novikov, J. Nuc. En. 1954; Chambadal 1957

Assuming adiabatic steps have duration proportional to sum of thermalization steps yields that at maximum power

the efficiency is

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

4 of 22

Quantum Heat Engines

The Otto-cycle

Adiabatic Compression

Adiabatic Expansion

Thermalisation

Thermalisation

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

5 of 22

Quantum Heat Engines

Definitions of Basic Quantitites

Following Alicki we chose to define work as

and heat as

Alicki. Physica A 1979

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

6 of 22

Sources of Inefficiencies I

Decoupling Work

Work medium is periodically coupled and decoupled from the

thermal baths.

Decoupling comes at work cost

This suggests that cost is proportional to engine-bath coupling strength & to system bath correlation

Is this cost unavoidable?

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

7 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

Full System-Bath Simulation

Prior, Chin, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2010;

Chin, Rivas, Huelga, Plenio, J. Math. Phys. 2010;

Tamascelli, Smirne, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2018

Tamascelli, Smirne, Lim, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2019

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

8 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

Asymptotics of the Chain Mapping

Prior, Chin, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2010;

Chin, Rivas, Huelga, Plenio, J. Math. Phys. 2010;

Tamascelli, Smirne, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2018

Tamascelli, Smirne, Lim, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2019

energies

coupling

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

9 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

Asymptotics of the Chain Mapping

Prior, Chin, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2010;

Chin, Rivas, Huelga, Plenio, J. Math. Phys. 2010;

Tamascelli, Smirne, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2018

Tamascelli, Smirne, Lim, Huelga, Plenio, PRL 2019

:

General proof follows from theory of orthogonal polynomials:

energies

coupling

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

10 of 22

Sources of Inefficiencies

Decoupling Work Can Be Made to Vanish

Consider harmonic oscillator coupled to a linear chain of harmonic oscillators in RWA

System thermalizes exponentially fast in time

decays exponentially in time

Perturbation travels away from system

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

11 of 22

Sources of Inefficiencies II

Quantum Friction

Expansion and compression steps change eigenstates

Finite rate operation, leads to coherences and then to �state transitions.

Introduce strong dephasing in the instantaneous �eigenbasis to suppress build up of coherences.

Simplest treatment uses time dependent Lindblad �operators (Feldmann & Kosloff, 2006)

Kosloff & Feldmann, PRE 2002

Feldmann & Kosloff, PRE 2006

Taken from Feldmann & Kosloff, PRE 2006

Question: Is such dephasing associated with a thermodynamical cost?

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

12 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

A Simplified Environment Model

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

13 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

A Simplified Environment Model

Strict equivalence proven in �Tamascelli Smirne, Huelga, Plenio PRL 2018

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

14 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

A Simplified Environment Model

Total exchanged energy with dephasing bath

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

15 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

A Specific Example

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

16 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

An Analytical Treatment

Heat transfer to dephasing bath during hot thermal strokes

Coupling to hot-bath

Duration of thermal stroke

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

17 of 22

The Thermodynamic Cost of Dephasing in a Heat Engine

An Analytical Treatment

For finite temperature dephasing bath we find

To keep power unchanged, fix

For any fixed power we can make vanishingly small the thermodynamic cost of the dephasing environment.

thermalization rates

peak location�width of dephasing bath spectral density �effective dephasing rate

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

18 of 22

Conclusions & Outlook

Yeah but no but yeah but …

  • Appears to be possible to run dephasing assisted Otto-cycle at arbitrary power �while approaching quasistatic efficiency

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

19 of 22

Conclusions & Outlook

Yeah but no but yeah but …

  • Appears to be possible to run dephasing assisted Otto-cycle at arbitrary power �while approaching quasistatic efficiency

  • One possible loophole: Did not account for the clock that times the cycle, increasing� precision of the clock increases cost, keeping precision fixed� leads to fluctuations.

Explore relation to�Pietzonka and Seifert. PRL 120, 190602 (2018)

Woods & Horodecki, PRX 13, 011016 (2023)

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

20 of 22

Conclusions & Outlook

Yeah but no but yeah but …

  • Appears to be possible to run dephasing assisted Otto-cycle at arbitrary power �while approaching quasistatic efficiency

  • One possible loophole: Did not account for the clock that times the cycle, increasing� precision of the clock increases cost, keeping precision fixed� leads to fluctuations.

  • Can one obtain results of this type from a dynamical resource theory ?

  • How do we put in into resource theories ?

Explore relation to�Pietzonka and Seifert. PRL 120, 190602 (2018)

Woods & Horodecki, PRX 13, 011016 (2023)

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

21 of 22

Team & Sponsors

Martin Plenio

Susana Huelga

Koenraad Audenaert

Jaemin Lim

Professors & Staff

Postdocs

Dario Cilluffo

Thibaut Lacroix

Yu Liu

Julen Pedernales

Luciano Pettruzziello

Gabriela Wójtowicz

Dayou Yang

PhD students

Bachelor/Master students

Felix Ahnefeld

Lennart Bosch

Jonas Breustedt

Namgee Cho

Benjamin Desef

Giovanni Di Meglio

José Diogo Guimarães

Daniel Dulog

Kevin Kessing

Martin Korzeczek

Matthias Kost

Trinidad Lantaño-Pinto

Lea Lautenbacher

Nicola Lorenzoni

Daniel Siciliano

Giovanni Spaventa

Marit Steiner

Raphael Weber

Nicholas Schubel

Johanna Seitz

Synergy Grant:

Diamond Quantum Devices and Biology�(BioQ) �2013 -2019

QMED

PhoQuant

Spinning

GoCeQ

Synergy Grant: Quantum hyperpolarisation�for ultrasensitive NMR and MRI �(HyperQ) �2020 - 2026

ExtraQt

LemaQume

QuMicro�C-QuENS

SPINUS

@Twitter

@https://www.uni-ulm.de/nawi/institut-fuer-theoretische-physik-start-page/home/

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines

22 of 22

The Team

Thermodynamics of Dephasing Assisted Heat Engines