Fully quantum fluctuation theorems

Understand

Systems that are driven out of thermal equilibrium typically dissipate random quantities of energy on microscopic scales.

• Crooks fluctuation theorem relates the distribution of these random work costs with the corresponding distribution for the reverse process.
• By an analysis that explicitly incorporates the energy reservoir that donates the energy, and the control system that implements the dynamic, we here obtain a quantum generalization of Crooks theorem that not only includes the energy changes in the reservoir, but the full description of its evolution, including coherences.
• This approach moreover opens up for generalizations of the concept of fluctuation relations.