Temperature control in dissipative cavities by entangled dimers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how entangled atom pairs can be used to precisely control the temperature of a cavity field, surpassing traditional methods and enabling applications in quantum thermodynamics and simulation.

Contribution

It introduces the novel use of entangled dimers to manipulate cavity temperature, providing a broader and more effective control mechanism than single atoms.

Findings

Entangled dimers can drastically alter cavity temperature despite decoherence.

Dimer states enable temperature control beyond ambient limits.

Potential applications in quantum engines and biological energy simulation.

Abstract

We show that the temperature of a cavity field can be drastically varied by its interaction with suitably-entangled atom pairs (dimers) traversing the cavity under realistic atomic decoherence. To this end we resort to the hitherto untapped resource of naturally entangled dimers whose state can be simply controlled via molecular dissociation, collisions forming the dimer, or unstable dimers such as positronium. Depending on the chosen state of the dimer, the cavity-field mode can be driven to a steady-state temperature that is either much lower or much higher than the ambient temperature, despite adverse effects of cavity loss and atomic decoherence. Entangled dimers enable much broader range of cavity temperature control than single `phaseonium' atoms with coherently-superposed levels. Such dimers are shown to constitute highly caloric fuel that can ensure high efficiency or power in photonic thermal engines. Alternatively, they can serve as controllable thermal baths for quantum simulation of energy exchange in photosynthesis or quantum annealing.