Energetics of self-organization in a dissipative two-qubit system driven by single-photon pulses

Finding principles of nonequilibrium self-organization in dissipative quantum systems is an open problem. One example is the notion of quantum dissipative adaptation (QDA), that relates the transition probability between the ground states of a quantum system to the nonequilibrium work absorbed during the transition. However, QDA was originally derived with three-level systems in lambda (Λ) configuration. Here, we consider a two-qubit model driven by single-photon pulses. We find that the absorbed work is generally related to the sum of Λ-type transition probabilities, instead of the direct transition probability between the two ground states. Although this is equivalent to standard QDA in most scenarios, we find an exception whereby optimal self-organization is not accompanied by maximum work consumption. We show how quantum coherence leaves this kind of imprint in the energetics of self-organization in the present model.