Thermodynamic uncertainty relation for quantum first-passage processes.

Abstract

We derive a thermodynamic uncertainty relation for first passage processes in quantum Markov chains. We consider first passage processes that stop after a fixed number of jump events, which contrasts with typical quantum Markov chains which end at a fixed time. We obtain bounds for the observables of the first passage processes in quantum Markov chains by the Loschmidt echo, which quantifies the extent of irreversibility in quantum many-body systems. Considering a particular case, we show that the lower bound corresponds to the quantum Fisher information, which plays a fundamental role in uncertainty relations in quantum systems. Moreover, considering classical dynamics, our bound reduces to a thermodynamic uncertainty relation for classical first passage processes.