Thermodynamic and energetic constraints on out-of-equilibrium tunneling rates

Abstract

We study bipartite quantum systems kept at different temperatures where a tunnel coupling between the two subsystems induces transitions. We find two independent constraints on the temperature-bias-dependent, out-of-equilibrium tunneling rates between the two subsystems, which both turn out to be particularly restrictive when the coupled quantum systems are small. These bounds take the form of a thermodynamic and of an energetic constraint, as they are associated with the dissipated heat and with the absorbed energy required to establish and deplete the temperature bias, respectively. The derived constraints apply to a large class of experimentally accessible quantum systems: except for the restriction to the tunneling regime, they hold for arbitrary subsystem Hamiltonians, including interactions or non-linear energy spectra. These results hold for a large class of experimentally relevant systems, ranging from molecular junctions to coupled cavities, and can be tested by, for instance, measuring the out-of-equilibrium tunneling current and its noise.