Noise-induced Renyi entropy flow of a quantum heat engine

Abstract

Entropy is one of the central quantities in thermodynamics, whose flow between two systems determines the statistics of energy transfers. In quantum systems entropy is non-linear in density matrix whose time evolution is cumbersome. Using recent developments in the Keldysh formalism for the evolution of nonlinear quantum information measures (Phys. Rev. B 91, 174307 (2015)), we study the flow of von Neumann and Renyi entropies in a generic four-level quantum system that is weakly coupled to equilibrium heat engines. We show that noise-induced coherence has significant influence on the entropy flow of the quantum heat engine. We determine analytical optimization of couplings for the purpose of designing optimal artificial energy transfer systems.