Energy change and Landauer’s principle in the interaction between qubit and quantum field theory

Abstract We give a general description of the system evolution under the interaction between qubit and quantum field theory up to the second order perturbation, which is also referred to as the simplified model of light-matter interaction. The results are classified into rotating and counter-rotating wave terms, the former corresponding to stimulated absorption and emission, and the latter to Unruh and anti-Unruh effects. We obtain not only the reduced density matrix of the qubit, but also the backreaction obtained by quantum field theory as the environment. The result shows that the energy variation of the quantum field theory is related to trajectory and the initial state of the qubit, the expectation values of the linear and quadratic field operators, and the temporal order product operator. When the qubit is in accelerated motion, the conventional Unruh effect causes the vacuum state to possess a “temperature”, which raises some doubts about the validity of Landauer’s principle. We prove that Landauer’s principle still holds for any state of motion.