Resource-resolved quantum fluctuation theorems in end-point measurement scheme

TL;DR

This paper develops a unified framework for quantum fluctuation theorems that incorporate various quantum resources like coherence and entanglement within an end-point measurement scheme, revealing their thermodynamic significance.

Contribution

It introduces resource-resolved fluctuation theorems, including generalized Jarzynski and Crooks relations, and concepts like resource weights and fluctuation distances to quantify quantum resources' thermodynamic roles.

Findings

Resource-resolved fluctuation theorems derived for quantum systems.

Introduction of weight of athermality and coherence to isolate quantum effects.

Entanglement-resolved fluctuation theorems for bipartite systems.

Abstract

Fluctuation theorems provide universal constraints on nonequilibrium energy and entropy fluctuations, making them a natural framework to assess how and to what extent quantum resources become thermodynamically relevant. We develop a unified framework for incorporating a generic quantum resource, including athermality, quantum coherence, and entanglement, into fluctuation theorems. We work within the end point measurement scheme, which avoids an initial energy measurement and allows quantum resources in the initial state to affect nonequilibrium energy statistics. We derive a family of quantum fluctuation theorems, including generalized Jarzynski equalities and Crooks type fluctuation relations, in which corrections decompose into resource resolved contributions. For single systems, we introduce the concept of weight of athermality, and combine it with the weight of coherence to isolate distinct thermodynamic effects of these quantum resources. For bipartite systems, we furthermore obtain two families of entanglement-resolved fluctuation theorems using an appended correlation operator and the best separable approximation, respectively. Finally, we introduce the concepts of coherence and entanglement fluctuation distances, as Kullback Leibler divergences, which quantify the thermodynamic relevance of quantum resources in a process-dependent and operational manner.