Permanent Thermodynamic Mpemba Inversion from Quantum-Jump Feedback

Abstract:We show that a common quantum-jump feedback protocol can permanently reverse the nonequilibrium free-energy ordering of two prescribed initial states while preserving their Gibbs equilibrium. The construction exploits collective compensation between monitored channels: their feedback corrections cancel at equilibrium but remain active during relaxation. This balance preserves free-energy monotonicity while allowing the relaxation modes to be reshaped. We prove that eliminating the complete slow-sector contribution of the initially higher-free-energy state, while retaining it for the comparison state, produces distinct asymptotic decay exponents. Their free-energy ratio then vanishes at long times, guaranteeing a permanent thermodynamic quantum Mpemba inversion under the same controlled dynamics. A thermal qutrit realizes the mechanism through coherence interference and exhibits distinct detection thresholds for spectral selection and exact slow-sector cancellation under feedback retuning.

Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)

arXiv:2610.16064 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2610.16064v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.16064 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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