Optimizing Thermalization

Journal article (2022)

Authors

Kamil Korzekwa Jagiellonian University
M.G. Lostaglio QCD/Terhal Group - QuTech Advanced Research Centre , QuTech Advanced Research Centre, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Research Group
QCD/Terhal Group (QuTech Advanced Research Centre) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 Kamil Korzekwa, M.G. Lostaglio
DOI
help_outline
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.040602
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2022

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

QuTech Advanced Research Centre

Department

Quantum Computing Division

Research Group

QCD/Terhal Group

Abstract

We present a rigorous approach, based on the concept of continuous thermomajorization, to algorithmically characterize the full set of energy occupations of a quantum system accessible from a given initial state through weak interactions with a heat bath. The algorithm can be deployed to solve complex optimization problems in out-of-equilibrium setups and it returns explicit elementary control sequences realizing optimal transformations. We illustrate this by finding optimal protocols in the context of cooling, work extraction, and catalysis. The same tools also allow one to quantitatively assess the role played by memory effects in the performance of thermodynamic protocols. We obtained exhaustive solutions on a laptop machine for systems with dimension d≤7, but with heuristic methods one could access much higher d.