Noise-induced Renyi entropy flow of a quantum heat engine

TL;DR

This paper investigates how noise-induced coherence affects entropy flow in a quantum heat engine, using advanced quantum formalism to analyze and optimize energy transfer processes.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of Keldysh formalism to study Renyi and von Neumann entropy flow in quantum heat engines, highlighting noise effects.

Findings

Noise-induced coherence significantly influences entropy flow.

Analytical optimization of couplings enhances energy transfer efficiency.

The approach enables design of optimal artificial energy transfer systems.

Abstract

Entropy is one of the central quantities in thermodynamics, whose flow between two systems determines the statistics of energy transfers. In quantum systems entropy is non-linear in density matrix whose time evolution is cumbersome. Using recent developments in the Keldysh formalism for the evolution of nonlinear quantum information measures (Phys. Rev. B 91, 174307 (2015)), we study the flow of von Neumann and Renyi entropies in a generic four-level quantum system that is weakly coupled to equilibrium heat engines. We show that noise-induced coherence has significant influence on the entropy flow of the quantum heat engine. We determine analytical optimization of couplings for the purpose of designing optimal artificial energy transfer systems.