Equivalence condition for the canonical and microcanonical ensembles in coupled spin systems

Noncanonical statistics of a finite quantum system with non-negligible system-bath coupling

The canonical statistics describes the statistical properties of an open system by assuming its coupling with the heat bath is infinitesimal in comparison with the total energy in thermodynamic limit. In this paper, we generally derive a noncanonical density matrix for the open system with a finite coupling to the heat bath, which deforms the energy shell to effectively modify the conventional canonical way. The obtained noncanonical distribution reflects the back action of system on the bath and thus depicts the statistical correlations between two subsystems by the mutual information as a result of energy conservation.

Phase transitions in the complex plane of physical parameters

At low temperature, a thermodynamic system undergoes a phase transition when a physical parameter passes through a singularity point of the free energy. This corresponds to the formation of a new order. At high temperature, thermal fluctuations destroy the order. Correspondingly, the free energy is a smooth function of the physical parameter and singularities only occur at complex values of the parameter. Since a complex valued parameter is unphysical, no phase transitions are expected when the physical parameter is varied. Here we show that the quantum evolution of a system, initially in thermal equilibrium and driven by a designed interaction, is equivalent to the partition function of a complex parameter. Therefore, we can access the complex singularity points of thermodynamic functions and observe phase transitions even at high temperature. We further show that such phase transitions in the complex plane are related to topological properties of the renormalization group flows of the complex parameters. This result makes it possible to study thermodynamics in the complex plane of physical parameters.

Decoherence induced deformation of the ground state in adiabatic quantum computation

Despite more than a decade of research on adiabatic quantum computation (AQC), its decoherence properties are still poorly understood. Many theoretical works have suggested that AQC is more robust against decoherence, but a quantitative relation between its performance and the qubits' coherence properties, such as decoherence time, is still lacking. While the thermal excitations are known to be important sources of errors, they are predominantly dependent on temperature but rather insensitive to the qubits' coherence. Less understood is the role of virtual excitations, which can also reduce the ground state probability even at zero temperature. Here, we introduce normalized ground state fidelity as a measure of the decoherence-induced deformation of the ground state due to virtual transitions. We calculate the normalized fidelity perturbatively at finite temperatures and discuss its relation to the qubits' relaxation and dephasing times, as well as its projected scaling properties.

Carnot's theorem for nonthermal stationary reservoirs

Carnot's theorem poses a fundamental limit on the maximum efficiency achievable from an engine that works between two reservoirs at thermal equilibrium. We extend this result to the case of arbitrary nonthermal stationary reservoirs, even with quantum coherence. In order to do this we prove that a single nonthermal reservoir is formally equivalent to multiple equilibrium ones. Finally, we discuss the possibility of realizing an engine that works at unit efficiency by exploiting quantum coherence present in the reservoir.

Nonthermal statistics in isolated quantum spin clusters after a series of perturbations

We show numerically that a finite isolated cluster of interacting spins 1/2 exhibits a surprising nonthermal statistics when subjected to a series of small nonadiabatic perturbations by an external magnetic field. The resulting occupations of energy eigenstates are significantly higher than the thermal ones on both the low and the high ends of the energy spectra. This behavior semiquantitatively agrees with the statistics predicted for the so-called "quantum microcanonical" ensemble, which includes all possible quantum superpositions with a given energy expectation value. Our findings also indicate that the eigenstates of the perturbation operators are generically localized in the energy basis of the unperturbed Hamiltonian. This kind of localization possibly protects the thermal behavior in the macroscopic limit.