Abstract
Entropy production provides a general way to state the second law of thermodynamics for non-equilibrium scenarios. In open quantum system dynamics, it also serves as a useful quantifier of the degree of irreversibility. In this work we shed light on the relation between correlations, initial preparation of the system and non-Markovianity by studying a system of two harmonic oscillators independently interacting with their local baths. Their dynamics, described by a time-local master equation, is solved to show - both numerically and analytically - that the global purity of the initial state of the system influences the behaviour of the entropy production rate and that the latter depends algebraically on the entanglement that characterise the initial state.
Highlights
Entropy production plays a fundamental role in both classical and quantum thermodynamics: by being related to the second law at a fundamental level, it enables to identify and quantify the irreversibility of physical phenomena [1]
We can draw the same conclusion as in the non-Markovian case: the more entanglement we input, the higher the entropy production rate. Both numerically and analytically, the dependence of the entropy production rate on the initial correlations between the components of a composite system
We have considered two noninteracting oscillators exposed to the effects of local thermal reservoirs
Summary
Entropy production plays a fundamental role in both classical and quantum thermodynamics: by being related to the second law at a fundamental level, it enables to identify and quantify the irreversibility of physical phenomena [1]. It has been recently shown that the entropy production of an open quantum system can be split into different contributions: one is classically related to population unbalances, while the other is a genuine quantum contribution due to coherences [6,7,8] This fundamental result holds whenever the system dynamics is either described by a map microscopically derived through the Davies approach or in the case of a finite map encompassing thermal operations [6]. It has been argued that this should not be interpreted as a violation of the second law of thermodynamics [14], but it should call for a careful use of the theory, in the sense that, in the entropy production balance, the role of the environment cannot be totally neglected This idea can be justified in terms of the backflow of information that quantum non-Markovianity entails: the system retrieves some of the information that has been previously lost because of its interaction with the surroundings. VI, we summarize the evidence we get and we eventually draw our conclusions
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