Thermodynamic Bounds on Precision in Ballistic Multi-Terminal Transport

TL;DR

This paper establishes a universal thermodynamic trade-off between dissipation and precision in classical ballistic multi-terminal transport, showing how magnetic fields and quantum correlations can weaken or bypass this bound.

Contribution

It introduces a new universal bound on dissipation versus precision in classical transport and explores how magnetic fields and quantum effects can alter this limit.

Findings

Magnetic fields weaken the dissipation-precision bound.

Explicit model demonstrates tightness of the bound.

Quantum correlations can exponentially reduce thermodynamic costs.

Abstract

For classical ballistic transport in a multi-terminal geometry, we derive a universal trade-off relation between total dissipation and the precision, at which particles are extracted from individual reservoirs. Remarkably, this bound becomes significantly weaker in presence of a magnetic field breaking time-reversal symmetry. By working out an explicit model for chiral transport enforced by a strong magnetic field, we show that our bounds are tight. Beyond the classical regime, we find that, in quantum systems far from equilibrium, correlated exchange of particles makes it possible to exponentially reduce the thermodynamic cost of precision.