Periodic Thermodynamics of Open Quantum Systems

Kay Brandner, Udo Seifert

Published 2016-04-12Version 1

The thermodynamics of quantum systems coupled to periodically modulated heat baths and work reservoirs is developed. By identifying affinities and fluxes, the first and second law are formulated consistently. In the linear response regime, entropy production becomes a quadratic form in the affinities. Specializing to Lindblad-dynamics, we identify the corresponding kinetic coefficients in terms of correlation functions of the unperturbed dynamics. Reciprocity relations follow from symmetries with respect to time reversal. The kinetic coefficients can be split into a classical and a quantum contribution subject to a new constraint, which follows from a natural detailed balance condition. This constraint implies universal bounds on efficiency and power of quantum heat engines. In particular, we show that Carnot efficiency can not be reached whenever quantum coherence effects are present, i.e., when the Hamiltonian used for work extraction does not commute with the bare system Hamiltonian. For illustration, we specialize our universal results to a driven two-level system in contact with a heat bath of sinusoidally modulated temperature.