Ergotropy from quantum and classical correlations

Abstract

It is an established fact that quantum coherences have thermodynamic value. The natural question arises, whether other genuine quantum properties such as entanglement can also be exploited to extract thermodynamic work. In the present analysis, we show that the ergotropy can be expressed as a function of the quantum mutual information, which demonstrates the contributions to the extractable work from classical and quantum correlations. More specifically, we analyze bipartite quantum systems with locally thermal states, such that the only contribution to the ergotropy originates in the correlations. Our findings are illustrated for a two-qubit system collectively coupled to a thermal bath.

Quantum thermodynamic devices: from theoretical proposals to experimental reality

“…Lindenfels et al 205 characterized the state and energetics of the flywheel both theoretically and experimentally. For this purpose, they evaluated the ergotropy of the flywheel, i.e, the maximum work that can be extracted via a cyclic unitary transformation [211][212][213][214] . This can be described as…”

Quantum correlations and ergotropy

“…which reduces to the expression for E (𝜌) recently introduced in Ref. [19] for a local thermal initial state, 𝜋 𝜌 = 𝜌 𝛽 . Since the quantum relative entropy is non-negative, we get the bounds…”

An analysis of anomalous particle flow between two correlated systems

“…The anomalous flow leads to the introduction of the apparent temperature which takes the correlation into account in an attempt to be able to predetermine the direction of energy flow [10]. Moreover, the correlation also plays a critical role in the process of work extraction [11][12][13][14][15][16], can be seen as a resource of work in the resource theory [17][18][19], and leads to deeper insights into the concepts of nano and quantum thermal machine [20][21][22], and quantum battery [23][24][25][26][27][28].…”