Certifying Ergotropy under Partial Information
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 130401 – Published 21 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pl26-g6vy
Abstract
Ergotropy, the maximum work extractable from a quantum system, is a central resource in quantum physics. Computing ergotropy is well established when the system state is fully known, but its estimation under partial information remains an open problem. Here we introduce a general certification framework that lower bounds ergotropy using only the expectation values of a limited set of arbitrary observables. The method naturally applies in the finite-statistics regime, yielding confidence-certified bounds that explicitly incorporate shot noise. We benchmark our approach on both synthetic data and experimental measurements from an IBM quantum processor. This establishes a robust and experimentally accessible tool for certifying extractable work in realistic quantum settings.
