Quantum Coherences and Classical Inhomogeneities as Equivalent Thermodynamics Resources

Andrew Smith; Kanupriya Sinha; Christopher Jarzynski

doi:10.3390/e24040474

Quantum Coherences and Classical Inhomogeneities as Equivalent Thermodynamics Resources

Entropy (Basel). 2022 Mar 29;24(4):474. doi: 10.3390/e24040474.

Authors

Andrew Smith¹, Kanupriya Sinha^{2

3}, Christopher Jarzynski^{1

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
³ School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85287, USA.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁵ Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

Abstract

Quantum energy coherences represent a thermodynamic resource, which can be exploited to extract energy from a thermal reservoir and deliver that energy as work. We argue that there exists a closely analogous classical thermodynamic resource, namely, energy-shell inhomogeneities in the phase space distribution of a system's initial state. We compare the amount of work that can be obtained from quantum coherences with the amount that can be obtained from classical inhomogeneities, and find them to be equal in the semiclassical limit. We thus conclude that coherences do not provide a unique thermodynamic advantage of quantum systems over classical systems, in situations where a well-defined semiclassical correspondence exists.

Keywords: quantum coherence; quantum thermodynamics; work extraction.

Grants and funding

DMR-1506969/National Science Foundation