Non-equilibrium Approach to Thermodynamics using Jarzynski Equality and Diagonal Entropy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method combining diagonal entropy and Jarzynski Equality to analyze non-equilibrium thermodynamics in closed quantum systems, enabling the estimation of temperature, entropy, and work distribution.

Contribution

It presents a new approach that integrates diagonal entropy with Jarzynski Equality to study non-equilibrium thermodynamics in quantum systems.

Findings

Diagonal entropy provides a meaningful temperature measure for closed quantum systems.

The method successfully computes free-energy profiles in quantum harmonic oscillators.

Application to a boson lattice model demonstrates practical estimation of thermodynamic quantities.

Abstract

We combine the formalisms of diagonal entropy and Jarzynski Equality to study the thermodynamic properties of closed quantum systems. Applying this approach to a quantum harmonic oscillator, the diagonal entropy offers a notion of temperature for closed systems away from equilibrium, and allows computing free-energy profiles. We also apply this approach to a hard-core boson lattice model, and discuss measures how to estimate temperature, entropy and measure work distribution functions. This technique offers a path to investigate the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics by means of performing work in a series of quenches.