Calorimetric measurement of work in a quantum system

Abstract

We propose a calorimetric measurement of work in a quantumsystem. As a physical realization, we consider a superconducting two-levelsystem, a Cooper-pair box, driven by a gate voltage past an avoided levelcrossing at charge degeneracy. We demonstrate that, with realistic experimentalparameters, the temperature measurement of a resistor (environment) can detectsingle microwave photons emitted or absorbed by the two-level system. Thismethod would thus be a way to measure the full distribution of work in repeatedmeasurements, and to assess the quantum fluctuation relations.