The second law and fluctuations of work: The case against quantum fluctuation theorems

Abstract

We study how Thomson's formulation of the second law: no work is extracted from an equilibrium ensemble by a cyclic process, emerges in the quantum situation through the averaging over fluctuations of work. The latter concept is carefully defined for an ensemble of quantum systems interacting with macroscopic sources of work. The approach is based on first splitting a mixed quantum ensemble into pure subensembles, which according to quantum mechanics are maximally complete and irreducible. The splitting is done by filtering the outcomes of a measurement process. A critical review is given of two other approaches to fluctuations of work proposed in the literature. It is shown that in contrast to those ones, the present definition {\it i)} is consistent with the physical meaning of the concept of work as mechanical energy lost by the macroscopic sources, or, equivalently, as the average energy acquired by the ensemble; {\it ii)} applies to an arbitrary non-equilibrium state. There is no direct generalization of the classical work-fluctuation theorem to the proper quantum domain. This implies some non-classical scenarios for the emergence of the second law.