Exploring the role of asymmetric-pulse modulation in quantum thermal machines and quantum thermometry

We explore the consequences of periodically modulating a quantum two-level system (TLS) with an asymmetric pulse when the system is in contact with thermal baths. By adopting the Floquet-Lindblad formalism for our analysis, we find that the unequal "up" and "down" time duration of the pulse has two main ramifications. First, the energy gap of the multiple sidebands or photon sectors created as a result of the periodic modulation are renormalized by a term which is dependent on both the modulation strength as well as the fraction of up (or down) time duration. Second, the weights of the different sidebands are no longer symmetrically distributed about the central band or zero photon sector. We illustrate the advantages of these findings in the context of applications in quantum thermal machines and thermometry. For a thermal machine constructed by coupling the TLS to two thermal baths, we demonstrate that the asymmetric pulse provides an extra degree of control over the mode of operation of the thermal machine. Further, by appropriately tuning the weight of the subbands, we also show that an asymmetric pulse may provide superior optimality in a recently proposed protocol for quantum thermometry, where dynamical control has been shown to enhance the precision of measurement.