# Energy upper bound for structurally stable $N$-passive states

Raffaele Salvia1 and Vittorio Giovannetti2

1Scuola Normale Superiore and University of Pisa, I-56127 Pisa, Italy
2NEST, Scuola Normale Superiore and Istituto Nanoscienze-CNR, I-56126 Pisa, Italy

### Abstract

Passive states are special configurations of a quantum system which exhibit no energy decrement at the end of an arbitrary cyclic driving of the model Hamiltonian. When applied to an increasing number of copies of the initial density matrix, the requirement of passivity induces a hierarchical ordering which, in the asymptotic limit of infinitely many elements, pinpoints ground states and thermal Gibbs states. In particular, for large values of $N$ the energy content of a $N$-passive state which is also structurally stable (i.e. capable to maintain its passivity status under small perturbations of the model Hamiltonian), is expected to be close to the corresponding value of the thermal Gibbs state which has the same entropy. In the present paper we provide a quantitative assessment of this fact, by producing an upper bound for the energy of an arbitrary $N$-passive, structurally stable state which only depends on the spectral properties of the Hamiltonian of the system. We also show the condition under which our inequality can be saturated. A generalization of the bound is finally presented that, for sufficiently large $N$, applies to states which are $N$-passive, but not necessarily structurally stable.

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### Cited by

[1] Mir Alimuddin, Tamal Guha, and Preeti Parashar, "Structure of passive states and its implication in charging quantum batteries", Physical Review E 102 2, 022106 (2020).

[2] Nikolaos Koukoulekidis, Rhea Alexander, Thomas Hebdige, and David Jennings, "The geometry of passivity for quantum systems and a novel elementary derivation of the Gibbs state", Quantum 5, 411 (2021).

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