Quantum thermodynamic uncertainty relation and macroscopic superconducting coherence
Stability and efficiency are mutually exclusive in a thermodynamic process, e.g., in a thermal machine. Any effort to reduce the fluctuations of a certain output quantity is necessarily accompanied by an increase of entropy production, therefore lowering its efficiency. This interplay is beautifully captured by the so-called thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs), which set a lower bound on the relative uncertainty of a current for a given rate of entropy production. Their status in hybrid normal-superconducting (N-S) devices has remained unsettled. We show that, in the subgap regime, departures from the normal quantum TUR are governed by superconducting coherence quantified by the pair amplitude, and that introducing a dephasing probe suppresses this coherence and restores the bound. We further derive a hybrid quantum TUR that is general for two-terminal N-S junctions in the Andreev regime: the inequality is never violated, is saturated only at vanishing current, and is related to the normal quantum bound under the replacement <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <a:mrow> <a:mi>e</a:mi> <a:mo>→</a:mo> <a:mn>2</a:mn> <a:mi>e</a:mi> </a:mrow> </a:math> . For N-S quantum dot and Cooper-pair-splitter systems, we compute current and noise and show that deviations from the normal bound track the pair amplitude on the central region. The results establish a direct link between superconducting macroscopic coherence and nonequilibrium fluctuations and supply a general bound for the Andreev regime.
Authors
- Michele Governale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7947-2155)
- Nahual Sobrino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5704-693X)
- Rosario P. Fazio
- Anonymous
- Fabio Taddei
Institutions
- Universidad de Buenos Aires (AR)
- Center for Theoretical Physics (PL)
- Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
- University of Naples Federico II (IT)
- MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (NZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Research
- Published
- 2026-01-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/tfsv-fjzd
- Primary Topic
- Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00