Speaker
Description
The laws of thermodynamics are fundamental laws of nature that classify energy changes for macroscopic systems as work performed by external driving and heat exchanged with the environment.The extension of thermodynamics to include quantum fluctuations faces unique challenges, such as the proper identification of heat and work, and the clarfication of the role of quantum coherence. We use a near-quantum-limited detector to experimentally track individual quantum trajectories of a driven qubit formed by the hybridization of a waveguide cavity and a transmon circuit. For each measured quantum coherent trajectory, we separately identify energy changes of the qubit as heat and work, and verify the first law of thermodynamics for an open quantum system. We further employ a novel quantum feedback loop to compensate for the exchanged heat and effectively isolate the qubit. By verifying the Jarzynski equality for the distribution of applied work, we demonstrate the validity of the second law of thermodynamics. Our results establish thermodynamics along individual quantum trajectories.
| Topic: | Mini-workshop: Quantum Foundations and Quantum Information |
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