The Asymptotic Cooling of Heat-Bath Algorithmic Cooling

TL;DR

This paper determines the fundamental asymptotic limit of heat-bath algorithmic cooling, establishing the maximum achievable purity of quantum states and linking it to the maximum extractable work in quantum thermodynamics.

Contribution

It proves the long-standing conjecture of the cooling limit for HBAC, providing the first explicit characterization of this fundamental bound.

Findings

Established the asymptotic cooling limit for HBAC techniques

Connected the cooling limit to the maximum extractable work in quantum thermodynamics

Resolved a decade-long open problem in quantum state purification

Abstract

The purity of quantum states is a key requirement for many quantum applications. Improving the purity is limited by fundamental laws of thermodynamics. Here we are probing the fundamental limits for a natural approach to this problem, namely heat-bath algorithmic cooling(HBAC). The existence of the cooling limit for HBAC techniques was proved by Schulman et al. in, the limit however remained unknown for the past decade. Here for the first time we find this limit. In the context of quantum thermodynamics, this corresponds to the maximum extractable work from the quantum system.