Emergence of the 2nd Law in an Exactly Solvable Model of a Quantum Wire

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05514v1
• Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2026 03:56:54 GMT
• Title: Emergence of the 2nd Law in an Exactly Solvable Model of a Quantum Wire
• Authors: Marco A. Jimenez-Valencia, Charles A. Stafford,
• Abstract summary: We show that the entropy production due to Joule heating in a quantum wire does not arise automatically.<n>We show that the expected entropy production is realized in the limit of a large number of local measurements by a series of floating thermoelectric probes.<n>The decoherence resulting from inelastic processes introduced by the local measurements is essential to the phenomenon of entropy production due to Joule heating.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: As remarked by Boltzmann, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is notable for the fact that it is readily proved using elementary statistical arguments, but becomes harder and harder to verify the more precise the microscopic description of a system. In this article, we investigate one particular realization of the 2nd Law, namely Joule heating in a wire under electrical bias. We analyze the production of entropy in an exactly solvable model of a quantum wire wherein the conserved flow of entropy under unitary quantum evolution is taken into account using an exact formula for the entropy current of a system of independent quantum particles. In this exact microscopic description of the quantum dynamics, the entropy production due to Joule heating does not arise automatically. Instead, we show that the expected entropy production is realized in the limit of a large number of local measurements by a series of floating thermoelectric probes along the length of the wire, which inject entropy into the system as a result of the information obtained via their continuous measurements of the system. The decoherence resulting from inelastic processes introduced by the local measurements is essential to the phenomenon of entropy production due to Joule heating, and would be expected to arise due to inelastic scattering in real systems of interacting particles.

Related papers

• Local approach to entropy production in the nonequilibrium dynamics of open quantum systems [41.99844472131922]
  We discuss fundamental features of the local expression for the entropy production rate of the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics of open systems.<n>It is shown that positivity of the entropy production rate for all possible initial states implies that the real parts of the eigenvalues of the time-local generator for the quantum master equation are always negative.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-03-02T13:41:42Z)
• Formulations of Quantum Thermodynamics and Applications in Open Systems [0.0]
  We explore different ways to describe quantum thermodynamics, using two main approaches: one based on entropy and the other on ergotropy.<n>In this thesis, we introduce a generalized approach to quantify non-Markovianity through the breakdown of monotonicity in thermodynamic functions.<n>We identify phenomena such as freezing and sudden death of ergotropy, and we establish an analytical relation between the change in ergotropy and the environment-induced work.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-11-30T15:00:38Z)
• Entropy Flow at the Quantum Limit [32.461516972240865]
  We show that the entropy entrained by heat flow is unbounded even though the entropy itself tends to zero.<n>The correct quantum formula predicts that the heat produced in quantum processes is vastly smaller than previously believed.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-08-31T00:46:33Z)
• Scrambling Enabled Entropy Accumulation in Open Quantum Systems [12.410361153759757]
  In closed quantum many-body systems, initially localized information spreads throughout the system and becomes highly complex.<n>Recent studies have shown that dissipation in open systems can hinder information scrambling, driving the system into a dissipative phase.<n>We unveil a novel phenomenon in open quantum systems, termed entropy accumulation, which occurs exclusively within the scrambling phase.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-02-11T11:24:09Z)
• Thermodynamics of adiabatic quantum pumping in quantum dots [50.24983453990065]
  We consider adiabatic quantum pumping through a resonant level model, a single-level quantum dot connected to two fermionic leads. We develop a self-contained thermodynamic description of this model accounting for the variation of the energy level of the dot and the tunnelling rates with the thermal baths.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-14T16:29:18Z)
• W entropy in hard-core system [5.156535834970047]
  In quantum mechanics the evolution of quantum states is symmetrical about time-reversal, resulting in a contradiction between thermodynamic entropy and quantum entropy. We study the W entropy, which is calculated from the probability distribution of the wave function on Wannier basis, in hard-core boson system.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-10-01T03:24:10Z)
• Demonstrating Quantum Microscopic Reversibility Using Coherent States of Light [58.8645797643406]
  We propose and experimentally test a quantum generalization of the microscopic reversibility when a quantum system interacts with a heat bath. We verify that the quantum modification for the principle of microscopic reversibility is critical in the low-temperature limit.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-05-26T00:25:29Z)
• Entropy production and correlation spreading in the interaction between particle detector and thermal baths [10.02300359702222]
  We study the entropy production and correlation spreading in the interaction between Unruh-DeWitt-like particle detector and thermal baths. We can observe that the entropy production implies quantum recurrence and shows periodicity.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-11-07T11:11:34Z)
• Growth of entanglement entropy under local projective measurements [0.0]
  We show that local projective measurements induce a qualitative modification of the time-growth of the entanglement entropy. In the stationary regime, the logarithmic behavior of the entanglement entropy do not survive in the thermodynamic limit. We numerically show the existence of a single area-law phase for the entanglement entropy.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-09-22T16:56:35Z)
• Taking the temperature of a pure quantum state [55.41644538483948]
  Temperature is a deceptively simple concept that still raises deep questions at the forefront of quantum physics research. We propose a scheme to measure the temperature of such pure states through quantum interference.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-03-30T18:18:37Z)
• Catalytic Transformations of Pure Entangled States [62.997667081978825]
  Entanglement entropy is the von Neumann entropy of quantum entanglement of pure states. The relation between entanglement entropy and entanglement distillation has been known only for the setting, and the meaning of entanglement entropy in the single-copy regime has so far remained open. Our results imply that entanglement entropy quantifies the amount of entanglement available in a bipartite pure state to be used for quantum information processing, giving results an operational meaning also in entangled single-copy setup.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-02-22T16:05:01Z)
• Entropy production in the quantum walk [62.997667081978825]
  We focus on the study of the discrete-time quantum walk on the line, from the entropy production perspective. We argue that the evolution of the coin can be modeled as an open two-level system that exchanges energy with the lattice at some effective temperature.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-04-09T23:18:29Z)
• First and Second Law of Quantum Thermodynamics: A Consistent Derivation Based on a Microscopic Definition of Entropy [0.0]
  This tutorial focuses on the derivation of the first and second law for closed and open quantum systems far from equilibrium. The derivation is based on a microscopic definition of five essential quantities: internal energy, thermodynamic entropy, work, heat and temperature.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-02-20T15:54:00Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.