The second law of thermodynamics from concavity of energy eigenvalues

TL;DR

This paper establishes a universal criterion based on the concavity of energy eigenvalues for quantum systems to obey the second law of thermodynamics, linking energy landscape properties to thermodynamic behavior.

Contribution

It introduces the concavity of energy eigenvalues as a new universal criterion for quantum systems to satisfy the second law, supported by conditions and examples.

Findings

Energy eigenvalue concavity implies the second law in quantum quenches.

Every energy eigenvalue can be concave in specific quantum systems.

Results align with the maximal work principle and eigenstate thermalization hypothesis.

Abstract

Quantum dynamics controlled by a time-dependent coupling constant are studied. It is proven that an energy eigenstate expectation value of work done by the system in a quench process cannot exceed the work in the corresponding quasi-static process, if and only if the energy eigenvalue is a concave function of the coupling constant. We propose this concavity of energy eigenvalues as a new universal criterion for quantum dynamical systems to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics. We argue simple universal conditions on quantum systems for the concavity, and show that every energy eigenvalue is indeed concave in some specific quantum systems. These results agree with the maximal work principle for adiabatic quench and quasi-static processes as an expression of the second law of thermodynamics. Our result gives a simple example of an integrable system satisfying an analogue to the strong eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) with respect to the principle of maximum work.