Testing the equivalence to thermal states via extractable work under LOCC

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Yada, Toshihiro, Yoshioka, Nobuyuki, Sagawa, Takahiro
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Yada, Toshihiro
Yoshioka, Nobuyuki
Sagawa, Takahiro
author_facet Yada, Toshihiro
Yoshioka, Nobuyuki
Sagawa, Takahiro
contents Understanding the thermal behavior of quantum many-body pure states is one of the most fundamental issues in quantum thermodynamics. It is widely known that typical pure states yield vanishing work, just as thermal states do, when one restricts to local operations that cannot access correlations among subsystems. However, it remains unclear whether this equivalence to thermal states persists under LOCC (local operations and classical communication), where classically accessible correlations can be exploited for work extraction. In this work, we establish criteria for determining whether many-body pure states remain equivalent to thermal states even under LOCC, and show that this thermal equivalence is governed by their multipartite quantum correlation structure. We show that states with asymptotically maximal multipartite entanglement, such as Haar-random states, cannot yield extensive work under LOCC, whereas some states with limited multipartite entanglement, such as constant-degree graph states, allow extensive work extraction despite being locally indistinguishable from thermal states. Thus, our work provides a refined operational notion of thermal equivalence beyond the traditional local regime, which is becoming increasingly important due to the recent expansion of experimentally accessible operations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14789
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Testing the equivalence to thermal states via extractable work under LOCC
Yada, Toshihiro
Yoshioka, Nobuyuki
Sagawa, Takahiro
Quantum Physics
Understanding the thermal behavior of quantum many-body pure states is one of the most fundamental issues in quantum thermodynamics. It is widely known that typical pure states yield vanishing work, just as thermal states do, when one restricts to local operations that cannot access correlations among subsystems. However, it remains unclear whether this equivalence to thermal states persists under LOCC (local operations and classical communication), where classically accessible correlations can be exploited for work extraction. In this work, we establish criteria for determining whether many-body pure states remain equivalent to thermal states even under LOCC, and show that this thermal equivalence is governed by their multipartite quantum correlation structure. We show that states with asymptotically maximal multipartite entanglement, such as Haar-random states, cannot yield extensive work under LOCC, whereas some states with limited multipartite entanglement, such as constant-degree graph states, allow extensive work extraction despite being locally indistinguishable from thermal states. Thus, our work provides a refined operational notion of thermal equivalence beyond the traditional local regime, which is becoming increasingly important due to the recent expansion of experimentally accessible operations.
title Testing the equivalence to thermal states via extractable work under LOCC
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14789