Quantum corrections of work statistics in closed quantum systems

Abstract

We investigate quantum corrections to the classical work characteristic function (CF) as a semiclassical approximation to the full quantum work CF. In addition to explicitly establishing the quantum-classical correspondence of the Feynman-Kac formula, we find that these quantum corrections must be in even powers of $\hbar$. Exact formulas of the lowest corrections ($\hbar^2$) are proposed, and their physical origins are clarified. We calculate the work CFs for a forced harmonic oscillator and a forced quartic oscillator respectively to illustrate our results.