Title: Quantum Thermodynamics with Superconducting Qubits

 

Abstract: The laws of thermodynamics are fundamental laws of nature that classify energy changes for macroscopic systems as work performed by external

driving and heat exchanged with the environment. In the past decades, these principles have been successfully extended to the level of

classical trajectories of microscopic systems to account for thermal fluctuations. In particular, experimentally tested generalizations of

the second law, known as fluctuation theorems, quantify the occurrence of negative entropy production. The extension of thermodynamics to

include quantum fluctuations faces unique challenges such as the proper identification of heat and work and clarification of the role of quantum

coherence. I will present experiments that allow us to track heat and work along single quantum trajectories of a superconducting qubit

evolving under continuous unitary evolution and measurement. We are able to verify the first law of thermodynamics in that the measured heat and

work sum to the total energy change of the quantum system. We then verify the second law of thermodynamics in the form of the Jarzynski

equality by employing a novel quantum feedback loop that cancels the heat exchanged at each point in time with additional work. Our

results successfully generalize stochastic thermodynamics to the quantum regime, paving the way for future experimental and theoretical

investigations of quantum information and thermodynamics.