Quantum thermodynamics of many-body driven systems
The project aims as developing novel thermodynamic concepts to understand quantum many-body systems when they are driven out of thermal equilibrium via the coupling to external reservoirs. In particular, we will clarify the specific resources, for thermodynamic protocols, contained in many-body quantum superpositions, which could be stabilized in these systems via the interplay of intrinsic dynamics, external driving and dissipation. Our special focus will be on exciton-polaritons systems, which realize ""quantum fluids of light"" due to the strong coupling of light to electronic excitations confined in semi-conducting micro-cavity. Considering lattices of coupled such microcavities -- realizing the analog of electronic band structures, with hybrid light-matter quasi-particles playing the role of electrons in ordinary metals and insulators -- we shall develop a novel theoretical approach to capture quantum-correlation effects in these quantum fluids. As a specific situation of fundamental interest, which can be realized in the aforementioned exciton-polariton lattices, we will investigate a quantum phase transition where dissipation plays a key role, stabilizing novel states of quantum matter with analogs neither in classical systems out of equilibrium, nor in quantum systems at thermal equilibrium. On the conceptual side, we will extend existing notions of quantum thermodynamics to a many-body realm. On the technical side, we shall develop a new semi-classical theory to describe quantum entanglement in these driven-dissipative quantum systems. This fundamental research, done in collaboration with theoreticians at the forefront of research in quantum thermodynamics, and world-class experimental groups for polaritonics, will open new perspectives for the application of driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems in quantum technologies.