Quantum thermal machine acting on a many-body quantum system: role of correlations in thermodynamic tasks

TL;DR

This paper investigates a three-level quantum thermal machine acting on a many-qubit system in a non-equilibrium electromagnetic field, revealing how quantum correlations enable thermodynamic tasks across different system sizes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum correlations induced by the environment enable thermodynamic tasks on large many-qubit systems, bridging single-qubit and macroscopic regimes.

Findings

Correlations among qubits are robust and induced by the electromagnetic field.

Thermodynamic tasks can be performed locally and collectively on large systems.

Scaling of quantum properties with system size is analyzed in a realistic setup.

Abstract

We study the functioning of a three-level thermal machine when acting on a many-qubit system, the entire system being placed in an electromagnetic field in a stationary out-of-thermal-equilibrium configuration. This realistic setup stands in between the two so-far explored cases of single-qubit and macroscopic object targets, providing information on the scaling with system size of purely quantum properties in thermodynamic contexts. We show that, thanks to the presence of robust correlations among the qubits induced by the field, thermodynamic tasks can be delivered by the machine both locally to each qubit and collectively to the many-qubit system: this allows a task to be delivered also on systems much bigger than the machine size.