{
  "id": "2102.07348",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2021-02-15T05:17:11.000Z",
  "updated": "2021-02-15T05:17:11.000Z",
  "title": "Lower Bound on Irreversibility in Thermal Relaxation of Open Quantum Systems",
  "authors": [
    "Tan Van Vu",
    "Yoshihiko Hasegawa"
  ],
  "comment": "7 pages, 2 figures; 8 pages of supplemental material with 1 figure",
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.stat-mech",
    "quant-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "We consider thermal relaxation process of a quantum system attached to a single or multiple reservoirs. Quantifying the degree of irreversibility by entropy production, we prove that the irreversibility of the thermal relaxation is lower-bounded by a relative entropy between the unitarily-evolved state and the final state. The bound characterizes the state discrepancy induced by the non-unitary dynamics, thus reflecting the dissipative nature of irreversibility. Intriguingly, the bound can be evaluated solely in terms of the initial and final states and the system Hamiltonian; hence, providing a feasible way to estimate entropy production without prior knowledge of the underlying coupling structure. Our finding refines the second law of thermodynamics and reveals a universal feature of thermal relaxation processes.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2021-02-15T05:17:11.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "open quantum systems",
      "lower bound",
      "irreversibility",
      "thermal relaxation process",
      "final state"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 7,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}