{
  "id": "1908.09731",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2019-08-26T15:24:38.000Z",
  "updated": "2019-08-26T15:24:38.000Z",
  "title": "Path integral approach to the calculation of the characteristic function of work",
  "authors": [
    "Tian Qiu",
    "Zhaoyu Fei",
    "Rui Pan",
    "H. T. Quan"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.stat-mech",
    "quant-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "Work statistics characterizes important features of a non-equilibrium thermodynamic process. But the calculation of the work statistics in an arbitrary non-equilibrium process is usually a cumbersome task. In this work, we study the work statistics in quantum systems by employing Feynman's path-integral approach. We derive the analytical work distributions of two prototype quantum systems. The results are proved to be equivalent to the results obtained based on Schr\\\"{o}dinger's formalism. We also calculate the work distributions in their classical counterparts by employing the path-integral approach. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of the path-integral approach to the calculation of work statistics in both quantum and classical thermodynamics, and brings important insights to the understanding of the trajectory work in quantum systems.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2019-08-26T15:24:38.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "path integral approach",
      "characteristic function",
      "calculation",
      "path-integral approach",
      "quantum systems"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}