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Path-integral approach to the calculation of the characteristic function of work
Tian Qiu1, Zhaoyu Fei1, Rui Pan1
1Institute of Condensed Matter and Material Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Abstract:
Work statistics characterizes important features of a nonequilibrium thermodynamic process, but the calculation of the work statistics in an arbitrary nonequilibrium process is usually a cumbersome task. In this work, we study the work statistics in quantum systems by employing Feynman's path-integral approach. We derive the analytical work distributions of two prototype quantum systems. The results are proved to be equivalent to the results obtained based on Schrödinger's formalism. We also calculate the work distributions in their classical counterparts by employing the path-integral approach. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of the path-integral approach for the calculation of work statistics in both quantum and classical thermodynamics, and brings important insights to the understanding of the trajectory work in quantum systems.
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