Precision is not limited by the second law of thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quantum many-body systems can achieve clock precision that scales exponentially with entropy dissipation, surpassing traditional thermodynamic limits and offering new possibilities for high-precision quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum many-body system that achieves exponential scaling of precision with entropy dissipation, challenging the conventional linear bounds.

Findings

Quantum systems can surpass thermodynamic precision limits.

Clock precision scales exponentially with entropy dissipation in the proposed model.

Coherent quantum dynamics enable higher precision at lower dissipation.

Abstract

Physical devices operating out of equilibrium are inherently affected by thermal fluctuations, limiting their operational precision. This issue is pronounced at microscopic and especially quantum scales and can only be mitigated by incurring additional entropy dissipation. Understanding this constraint is crucial for both fundamental physics and technological design. For instance, clocks are inherently governed by the second law of thermodynamics and need a thermodynamic flux towards equilibrium to measure time, which results in a minimum entropy dissipation per clock tick. Classical and quantum models and experiments often show a linear relationship between precision and dissipation, but the ultimate bounds on this relationship are unknown. Our theoretical discovery presents an extensible quantum many-body system that achieves clock precision scaling exponentially with entropy dissipation. This finding demonstrates that coherent quantum dynamics can surpass the traditional thermodynamic precision limits, potentially guiding the development of future high-precision, low-dissipation quantum devices.