Minimizing dissipation via interacting environments: Quadratic convergence to Landauer bound
P Lipka-Bartosik, M Perarnau-Llobet - Physical Review Letters, 2025 - APS
Physical Review Letters, 2025•APS
We explore the fundamental limits on thermodynamic irreversibility when cooling a quantum
system in the presence of a finite-size reservoir. First, we prove that, for any noninteracting n-
particle reservoir, the entropy production Σ decays at most linearly with n. Instead, we derive
a cooling protocol in which Σ∝ 1/n 2, which is, in fact, the best possible scaling. This
becomes possible due to the presence of interactions in the finite-size reservoir, which must
be prepared at the verge of a phase transition. We further show numerically that an …
system in the presence of a finite-size reservoir. First, we prove that, for any noninteracting n-
particle reservoir, the entropy production Σ decays at most linearly with n. Instead, we derive
a cooling protocol in which Σ∝ 1/n 2, which is, in fact, the best possible scaling. This
becomes possible due to the presence of interactions in the finite-size reservoir, which must
be prepared at the verge of a phase transition. We further show numerically that an …
We explore the fundamental limits on thermodynamic irreversibility when cooling a quantum system in the presence of a finite-size reservoir. First, we prove that, for any noninteracting -particle reservoir, the entropy production decays at most linearly with . Instead, we derive a cooling protocol in which , which is, in fact, the best possible scaling. This becomes possible due to the presence of interactions in the finite-size reservoir, which must be prepared at the verge of a phase transition. We further show numerically that an intermediate scaling of with can be achieved using a star-network configuration for the reservoir. Our results open the possibility of cooling with a higher energetic efficiency via interacting reservoirs.