Quantum coherence and criticality in irreversible work

The irreversible work during a driving protocol constitutes one of the most widely studied measures in non-equilibrium thermodynamics, as it constitutes a proxy for entropy production. In quantum systems, it has been shown that the irreversible work has an additional, genuinely quantum mechanical contribution, due to coherence produced by the driving protocol. The goal of this paper is to explore this contribution in systems that undergo a quantum phase transition. Substantial effort has been dedicated in recent years to understand the role of quantum criticality in work protocols. However, practically nothing is known about how coherence contributes to it. To shed light on this issue, we study the entropy production in infinitesimal quenches of the one-dimensional XY model. For quenches in the transverse field, we find that for finite temperatures the contribution from coherence can, in certain cases, account for practically all of the entropy production. At low temperatures, however, the coherence presents a finite cusp at the critical point, whereas the entropy production diverges logarithmically. Alternatively, if the quench is performed in the anisotropy parameter, we find that there are situations where all of the entropy produced is due to quantum coherences.