Lecturer: Dr. Saar Rahav
Affiliation: Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Abstract:
Work plays a central role in thermodynamics,
and is also a well understood concept in
classical mechanics. Defining quantum work has
proven to be more challenging. One popular
definition is based on the difference between
initial and final energy measurements. This two-
measurement definition was found to satisfy
nonequilibrium work relations, just like its
classical counterpart, but one may wonder
whether it is used solely for this reason. To
clarify this we employed semiclassical methods
to study the quantum work distribution of a
driven quartic oscillator. The quantum work
distribution is found to be built from the same
classical trajectories that would contribute to its
classical counterpart. However, in the quantum
case these trajectories carry phases and are
allowed to interfere. Our results clarify the
correspondence between quantum and classical
notions of work, and gives further evidence that
the two-measurement definition of work is
physically meaningful.