2024/12/23 by Lindsay Bassman Oftelie, Michele Campisi, Oftelie, Lindsay Bassman +1 · 4 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.17491
openalex publication_date 2024/12/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
We report on the experimental measurement of the work statistics of a genuinely open quantum system using a quantum computer. Such measurement has remained elusive thus far due to the inherent difficulty in measuring the total energy change of a system-bath compound (which is the work) in the open quantum system scenario. We overcome this difficulty by extending the interferometric scheme, originally conceived for closed systems, to the open system case and implement it on a superconducting quantum computer, taking advantage of the relatively high levels of noise on current quantum hardware to realize an open quantum system. We demonstrate that the method can be used as a diagnostic tool to probe physical properties of the system-bath compound, such as its temperature and specific transitions frequencies in its spectrum. Our experiments corroborate that the interferometric scheme is a promising tool to achieve the long-sought experimental validation of the Jarzynski equality for arbitrary open quantum systems.