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Experimental study on the principle of minimal work fluctuations

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2023-10-23
JournalPhysical review. A/Physical review, A
AuthorsWei Cheng, Wenquan Liu, Yang Wu, Zhibo Niu, Chang‐Kui Duan
InstitutionsNational University of Singapore, Tianjin University
Citations5

The central quantity in the celebrated quantum Jarzynski equality is ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\beta}W}$, where $W$ is work and $\ensuremath{\beta}$ is the inverse temperature. The impact of quantum randomness on the fluctuations of ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\beta}W}$ and hence on the predictive power of the Jarzynski estimator is an important problem. Working on a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond and riding on an implementation of the two-point measurement of nonequilibrium work with single-shot readouts, we have conducted a direct experimental investigation of the relationship between the fluctuations of ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\beta}W}$ and adiabaticity of nonequilibrium work protocols. It is observed that adiabatic processes minimize the variance of ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\beta}W}$, thus verifying an early theoretical concept, the so-called principle of minimal work fluctuations. Furthermore, it is experimentally demonstrated that shortcuts-to-adiabaticity control can be exploited to minimize the variance of ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\beta}W}$ in fast work protocols. Our work should stimulate further experimental studies of quantum effects on the bias and error in the estimates of free-energy differences based on the Jarzynski equality.

  1. 2018 - Thermodynamics in the Quantum Regime