Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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QI: Fachverband Quanteninformation
QI 7: Quantum Thermodynamics
QI 7.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 10:45–11:00, BEY/0E17
Local and global thermodynamics of pure decoherence processes — •Irene Ada Picatoste1, Alessandra Colla2, and Heinz-Peter Breuer1 — 1Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany — 2Dipartimento di Fisica Aldo Pontremoli, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Celoria 16, I-20133 Milan, Italy
We study the thermodynamics of pure decoherence processes in open quantum systems coupled to a thermal reservoir. We perform a comparison between two viewpoints: a local approach [1] which is based on the system's degrees of freedom alone, and global approaches [2, 3] which require knowledge about the degrees of freedom of the bath. We also employ a specific model and, in calculating entropy production, internal energy, heat and work, we find substantial differences between the formulations. Concretely, in the global approaches we observe a large heat exchange, that refers in this particular case to the rearranging of the energy in the degrees of freedom of the reservoir, rather than to energy entering or leaving the system [4].
[1] A. Colla and H.-P. Breuer, Phys. Rev. A 105, 052216 (2022).
[2] M. Esposito, K. Lindenberg, and C. V. den Broeck, New J. Phys. 12, 013013 (2010).
[3] G. T. Landi and M. Paternostro, Rev. Mod. Phys. 93, 035008 (2021).
[4] I. A. Picatoste, A. Colla, and H.-P. Breuer, Phys. Rev. A 112, 022210 (2025).
Keywords: quantum thermodynamics; open quantum systems; decoherence