Quantum Thermodynamics for Driven Dissipative Bosonic Systems

TL;DR

This paper explores the thermodynamics of driven dissipative bosonic systems, specifically the damped harmonic oscillator and two-level system, analyzing their dynamics, heat, work, and entropy production without needing nonequilibrium entropy definitions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of thermodynamic behavior in driven dissipative bosonic systems, including entropy production and phenomenological friction coefficients, across different coupling strengths.

Findings

Thermodynamic laws are verified for both systems.

Entropy production rates are obtained without nonequilibrium entropy definitions.

Phenomenological friction coefficients are derived from system-bath properties.

Abstract

We investigate two prototypical dissipative bosonic systems under slow driving and arbitrary system-bath coupling strength, recovering their dynamic evolution as well as the heat and work rates, and we verify that thermodynamic laws are respected. Specifically, we look at the damped harmonic oscillator and the damped two-level system. For the former, we study independently the slow time- dependent perturbation in the oscillator frequency and in the coupling strength. For the latter, we concentrate on the slow modulation of the energy gap between the two levels. Importantly, we are able to find the entropy production rates for each case without explicitly defining nonequilibrium extensions for the entropy functional. This analysis also permits the definition of phenomenological friction coefficients in terms of structural properties of the system-bath composite.