Perturbative approach to the first law of quantum thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper develops a perturbative framework to clarify the role of quantum coherence in the first law of quantum thermodynamics, resolving previous interpretational ambiguities.

Contribution

It introduces a second-order perturbative approach that explicitly decomposes coherence contributions into heat and work, unifying and clarifying the quantum first law.

Findings

Coherence can be decomposed into coherent heat and work.

Perturbative corrections relate to Fermi's golden rule transition rates.

Formalism resolves previous inconsistencies in quantum thermodynamics.

Abstract

In quantum thermodynamics, the decomposition of energy exchanges into heat and work remains an open problem beyond weak-coupling and slow-driving regimes. Recent formulations have shown that quantum coherence introduces additional energy contributions whose thermodynamic interpretation is still under debate, raising fundamental questions about the structure of the quantum first law. In this work, we investigate this problem through a time-dependent perturbative framework applied to the first law of quantum thermodynamics. By expanding the thermodynamic quantities up to second order, we derive explicit perturbative corrections for work, heat, and coherence contributions. Our results show that the coherence term can be consistently decomposed into coherent heat and coherent work, demonstrating that quantum coherence does not require the introduction of an independent energetic contribution beyond heat and work. The formalism resolves inconsistencies associated with previous formulations of the quantum first law, including the interpretation of coherence contributions and their connection with entropy fluxes. At second order, the perturbative corrections become directly connected to transition rates governed by Fermi's golden rule, establishing a bridge between microscopic quantum transitions and macroscopic thermodynamic quantities. These results provide a physically transparent framework to investigate coherence-driven thermodynamic processes and offer new perspectives for the analysis of driven quantum systems and nonequilibrium quantum technologies.