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Thermodynamic work capacity of quantum information processing

Himanshu Badhani1,2,*, Dhanuja G.S.1,3, and Siddhartha Das1,2,†

  • *Contact author: himanshubadhani@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: das.seed@iiit.ac.in
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APS Open Sci. 1, 000092 – Published 12 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xnzv-6975

Abstract

We introduce the resource-theoretic free energy of a quantum channel as the maximal work extractable from the channel as its output equilibrates to a thermal state and its reference system remains locally intact. It is proportional to the relative entropy between the given channel and the absolutely thermal channel. It attains a clear operational meaning as twice the asymptotic rates of athermality distillation and formation under Gibbs-preserving superchannels, which map one absolutely thermal channel to another for a given bath, thereby revealing the asymptotic reversibility of the resource theory of athermality for quantum channels. Consequently, we establish that the optimal extractable work in converting one channel to another through the asymptotic athermality distillation and formation tasks equals the difference in their free energies. We call this optimal work the thermodynamic work capacity of channel conversion. Quantum information processing and computing fundamentally concern the manipulation and transformation of quantum channels, which encompass quantum states, their transformations, and measurements. A quantitative characterization of the optimal thermodynamic work gain or expenditure in quantum information processing constitutes a key step toward formulating thermodynamics of quantum processes.

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APS Open Sci. 1, 000092– Published 12 August, 2026
Vol. 1
  • Received 27 October 2025
  • Accepted 24 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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