Engines for predictive work extraction from memoryful quantum stochastic processes

Quantum information-processing techniques enable work extraction from a system's inherently quantum features, in addition to the classical free energy it contains. Meanwhile, the science of computational mechanics affords tools for the predictive modeling of non-Markovian classical and quantum...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ruo Cheng Huang, Paul M. Riechers, Mile Gu, Varun Narasimhachar
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Verein zur Förderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften 2023-12-01
Series:Quantum
Online Access:https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2023-12-11-1203/pdf/
Description
Summary:Quantum information-processing techniques enable work extraction from a system's inherently quantum features, in addition to the classical free energy it contains. Meanwhile, the science of computational mechanics affords tools for the predictive modeling of non-Markovian classical and quantum stochastic processes. We combine tools from these two sciences to develop a technique for predictive work extraction from non-Markovian stochastic processes with quantum outputs. We demonstrate that this technique can extract more work than non-predictive quantum work extraction protocols, on the one hand, and predictive work extraction without quantum information processing, on the other. We discover a phase transition in the efficacy of memory for work extraction from quantum processes, which is without classical precedent. Our work opens up the prospect of machines that harness environmental free energy in an essentially quantum, essentially time-varying form.
ISSN:2521-327X