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Quantum measurement engines and their relevance for quantum interpretations

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Abstract

This article presents recent progress in the theory of quantum measurement engines and discusses the implications of them for quantum interpretations and philosophical implications of the theory. Several new measurement engine designs are introduced and analyzed. We discuss a feedback-based atom-and-piston engine that exactly associates all work with successful events and all quantum heat with the failed events, as well as an unconditional but coherent qubit engine that can attain perfect efficiency. Any quantum measurement of an observable that does not commute with the Hamiltonian will necessarily change the energy of the system. We discuss different ways to extract that energy, the efficiency and work production of that process.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the John Templeton Foundation for sponsoring the “Quantum Limits of Knowledge” meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Niels Bohr Institute, as well as Eugene Polzik for organizing it and inviting us to present our research. ANJ and CE’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES) under Award No. DE-SC-467 0017890. We thank Joe Eberly for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA

    Andrew N. Jordan & Cyril Elouard

  2. Institute for Quantum Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA, 92866, USA

    Andrew N. Jordan

  3. Institut Néel, CNRS/UGA, 25, avenue des Martyrs, BP 166, 38042, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

    Alexia Auffèves

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  1. Andrew N. Jordan
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  2. Cyril Elouard
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Correspondence to Andrew N. Jordan.

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Jordan, A.N., Elouard, C. & Auffèves, A. Quantum measurement engines and their relevance for quantum interpretations. Quantum Stud.: Math. Found. 7, 203–215 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40509-019-00217-2

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