Quantum work relations under trial Hamiltonians

Abstract

The universal quantum work relation connects a functional of an arbitrary observable averaged over the forward process to the free-energy difference and another functional averaged over the time-reversed process. Here, we ask the question if the system is driven out of equilibrium by a different Hamiltonian rather than the original one during the forward process and similarly during the reversed process then how accurate is the quantum work relation. We present an inequality that must be satisfied when the system is driven out by such a trial Hamiltonian. This also answers the issue of accuracy of the Jarzynski relation with a trial Hamiltonian. We have shown that the correction term can be expressed as the averages of the difference operator between the accurate and trial Hamiltonians. This leads to a generalized version of the Bogoliubov inequality for the free-energy differences.