2022/05/19 by Saleh Naghdi, Naghdi, Saleh, Thomas Quella +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2205.09300
9 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2022/05/19 · openalex publication_date 2022/05/19 · arxiv updated 2022/05/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
By the standard second law of thermodynamics, heat spontaneously flows from a hotter body to a colder body. However, quantum systems in which quantum correlations play a prominent role can exhibit a non-classical reversal of such heat flow. We propose a quantum system consisting of a chain of qubits, each in local Gibbs states, where only adjacent qubits are allowed to thermally interact. By controlling initial quantum correlations along the chain, we then demonstrate non-classical heat reversal for the special case of a three-qubit chain on a quantum computer. We explore multiple initial conditions for the spin chain to showcase exotic behaviour such as the preferential pumping of heat afforded by unequal initial correlations between adjacent pairs of qubits, reinforcing the role that initial correlations play in influencing the dynamics of heat flow.