Weak invariants, temporally local equilibria and isoenergetic processes described by the Lindblad equation
Congjie OuPhysics Division, College of Information Science and Engineering, Huaqiao University - Xiamen 361021, ChinaSumiyoshi AbeDepartment of Physical Engineering, Mie University - Mie 514-8507, Japan
2019en
ABI
Abstract
The concept of weak invariants is examined in the thermodynamic context. Discussions are made about the temporally-local equilibrium states, corrections to them, and isoenergetic processes based on the quantum master equations of the Lindblad type that admit time-dependent Hamiltonians as weak invariants. The method for determining the correction presented here may be thought of as a quantum-mechanical analog of the Chapman-Enskog expansion in nonequilibrium classical statistical mechanics. Then, the theory is applied to the time-dependent harmonic oscillator as a simple example, and the power output and the work along an isoenergetic process are evaluated within the framework of finite-time quantum thermodynamics.
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Cited by 30 references