Channels, measurements and post-selection in quantum thermodynamics

Tom Purves, Tony Short

Published 2020-08-20Version 1

We analyse the benefit, in terms of extracting work, of having a single use of a quantum channel or measurement in quantum thermodynamics. This highlights a connection between unital and catalytic channels, and some subtleties concerning the conditional work cost of implementing a measurement given that a certain result was obtained. We also consider post-selected measurements, and show that any non-trivial post-selection leads to an unbounded work benefit.