Fluctuations of work in nearly adiabatically driven open quantum systems.

Area of Science:

• Quantum mechanics
• Open quantum systems
• Statistical mechanics

Background:

• Quantum jump method is crucial for simulating open quantum systems.
• Accurate accounting for external driving in system-environment interactions is challenging.
• Thermodynamic quantities in driven quantum systems require careful theoretical treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend the quantum jump method for nearly adiabatically driven open quantum systems.
• To accurately incorporate external driving effects into system-environment interactions.
• To derive and verify fluctuation theorems and the Jarzynski equality for such systems.

Main Methods:

• Extension of the quantum jump method to include adiabatic driving.
• Construction of trajectory-dependent work calculations.
• Derivation of integral fluctuation theorem and Jarzynski equality.
• Numerical simulations for a two-level quantum system.

Main Results:

• The extended quantum jump method accurately accounts for external driving.
• Integral fluctuation theorem and Jarzynski equality are derived and shown to hold under consistent definitions.
• Numerical results for a two-level system highlight limitations of the diabatic approximation.
• The continuity of work probability density is observed, which the diabatic approximation misses.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework provides accurate work statistics in driven open quantum systems.
• The conventional diabatic approximation is insufficient for capturing key features of driven systems.
• Accurate expressions for drive-dressed heat exchange are essential for future experiments on quantum jump distributions.