- Sebastian Deffner: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
We consider a closed quantum system initially at thermal equilibrium and driven by arbitrary external parameters. We derive a lower bound on the entropy production which we express in terms of the Bures angle between the nonequilibrium and the corresponding equilibrium state of the system. The Bures angle is an angle between mixed quantum states and defines a thermodynamic length valid arbitrarily far from equilibrium. As an illustration, we treat the case of a time-dependent harmonic oscillator for which we obtain analytic expressions for generic driving protocols.