Efficiently Cooling Quantum Systems with Finite Resources: Insights from Thermodynamic Geometry

Area of Science:

• Quantum thermodynamics
• Information theory
• Quantum computing

Background:

• Landauer's principle sets a fundamental limit on heat dissipation during information erasure, crucial for miniaturizing devices.
• Nernst's third law implies that achieving perfect quantum states requires infinite resources, posing a challenge for practical quantum technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate methods for cooling quantum systems using finite resources.
• To explore the trade-offs between different resources (energy, time, control complexity) in quantum cooling protocols.
• To derive bounds on heat dissipation for information erasure in quantum systems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Markovian collision models to simulate quantum system dynamics.
• Developed and analyzed efficient cooling protocols for qubits under coherent and incoherent control.
• Applied the concept of thermodynamic length to establish bounds on heat dissipation.

Main Results:

• Presented efficient cooling protocols that are optimal for qubits.
• Derived theoretical bounds on heat dissipation for swap-based information erasure strategies.
• Quantified the resource trade-offs inherent in preparing pure quantum states.

Conclusions:

• Efficient cooling of quantum systems is achievable with finite resources.
• The developed protocols offer practical pathways for minimizing errors in quantum devices.
• Understanding resource limitations is key to advancing quantum information processing.