Limitations on Joint Coherence Transfer in Quantum Thermodynamics

Abstract

Coherences between different energy levels are strongly constrained by thermodynamics. Here we ask a related question: if several coherence transfers can be optimized separately, can they also be optimized simultaneously by the same thermodynamic process? We show that this is in general a compatibility problem. Using an energy-resolved Stinespring representation of thermal operations, we express elementary coherence-transfer amplitudes as inner products of bath-weighted vectors associated with total-energy shells. Saturation of the corresponding Cauchy--Schwarz bounds requires these vectors to be collinear. Since all transfers have to arise from the same energy-preserving system--bath unitary, such saturation conditions cannot in general be imposed independently. Trace and Gibbs preservation lead to additional phase-closure conditions and to polygon inequalities that can rule out simultaneous saturation for fixed population-transfer data. We complement these analytic results with a rigorous computer-assisted semidefinite-program analysis. For the mixed-degenerate Hamiltonian $H=\operatorname{diag}(0,1,1,3)$, machine-certified primal and dual bounds show that no covariant Gibbs-preserving channel can simultaneously attain three individually optimal directional coherence transfers. Since every thermal operation is covariant and Gibbs preserving, the same triple of optimal values cannot be attained by a thermal operation. We further relate this incompatibility to range-inclusion constraints in Choi-sector Gram matrices for mixed-degenerate energy levels. Our results show that coherence transfers which are optimal when considered separately need not be compatible with one physical thermodynamic process. A full characterization of this incompatibility directly within thermal operations remains open.