The second law of thermodynamics in the quantum Brownian oscillator at an arbitrary temperature

Abstract

In the classical limit no work is needed to couple a system to a bath with sufficiently weak coupling strength (or with arbitrarily finite coupling strength for a linear system) at the same temperature. In the quantum domain this may be expected to change due to system-bath entanglement. Here we show analytically that the work needed to couple a single linear oscillator with finite strength to a bath cannot be less than the work obtainable from the oscillator when it decouples from the bath. Therefore, the quantum second law holds for an arbitrary temperature. This is a generalization of the previous results for zero temperature [1,2]; in the high temperature limit we recover the classical behavior.

Accepted for publication in EPJ B