Symmetry and the thermodynamics of currents in open quantum systems
Name
PhysRevB.90.125138.pdf
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892.64 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Hurtado, Pablo I.
Manzano Diosdado, Daniel
Date Issued
September 2014
Journal
Physical Review B
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Manzano, Daniel, and Pablo I. Hurtado. "Symmetry and the thermodynamics of currents in open quantum systems." Phys. Rev. B 90, 125138 (September 2014). © 2014 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Symmetry is a powerful concept in physics, and its recent application to understand nonequilibrium behavior is providing deep insights and groundbreaking exact results. Here we show how to harness symmetry to control transport and statistics in open quantum systems. Such control is enabled by a first-order-type dynamic phase transition in current statistics and the associated coexistence of different transport channels (or nonequilibrium steady states) classified by symmetry. Microreversibility then ensues, via the Gallavotti-Cohen fluctuation theorem, a twin dynamic phase transition for rare current fluctuations. Interestingly, the symmetry present in the initial state is spontaneously broken at the fluctuating level, where the quantum system selects the symmetry sector that maximally facilitates a given fluctuation. We illustrate these results in a qubit network model motivated by the problem of coherent energy harvesting in photosynthetic complexes, and introduce the concept of a symmetry-controlled quantum thermal switch, suggesting symmetry-based design strategies for quantum devices with controllable transport properties.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.125138
