Nonequilibrium potential and fluctuation theorems for quantum maps

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2015 Sep;92(3):032129. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.032129. Epub 2015 Sep 21.

Abstract

We derive a general fluctuation theorem for quantum maps. The theorem applies to a broad class of quantum dynamics, such as unitary evolution, decoherence, thermalization, and other types of evolution for quantum open systems. The theorem reproduces well-known fluctuation theorems in a single and simplified framework and extends the Hatano-Sasa theorem to quantum nonequilibrium processes. Moreover, it helps to elucidate the physical nature of the environment that induces a given dynamics in an open quantum system.