Thermodynamics and non-equilibrium dynamics of open quantum systems

量子系统的热力学和非平衡动力学与环境自由度的联系-被称为开放量子系统-是物理学和化学中最重要的课题。该项目将开发新的理论技术，用于分析系统和水库之间强耦合的自治量子热机的行为。这对纳米级热机和冰箱以及从热资源产生量子关联具有实际应用。研究的主要目的是了解在这种情况下，强储层耦合是否有益，或者它通常以有害的方式起作用。另一个目标是在系统-储层相关性存在的情况下定义基本量，例如热量和功。为了实现这些目标，学生将开发新的数值技术来描述量子系统的非平衡动力学。这些都是基于将一个与周围环境强耦合的量子系统映射到一个扩展到包括主导环境影响的量子系统，但随后弱耦合到剩余环境影响。

The thermodynamics and non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum systems in contact with environmental degrees of freedom---known as open quantum systems---are topics of primary importance in physics and chemistry. This project will develop new theoretical techniques for analysing the behaviour of autonomous quantum thermal machines at strong coupling between the system and reservoirs. This has practical applications to nanoscale heat engines and refrigerators, as well as to the generation of quantum correlations from thermal resources. The key aim of the research is to understand whether strong reservoir coupling can be beneficial in such situations, or if it generally acts in detrimental manner. A further objective is to define fundamental quantities such as heat and work in the presence of system-reservoir correlations. To attain these goals the student will develop novel numerical techniques to describe the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum systems. These are based on mapping a quantum system strongly coupled to its surrounding environments to one that is expanded to include the dominant environmental influences, but is then weakly coupled to residual environmental influences.