Universal Energy Fluctuations in Inelastic Scattering Processes.

Quantum scattering is used ubiquitously in both experimental and theoretical physics across a wide range of disciplines, from high-energy physics to mesoscopic physics. In this Letter, we uncover universal relations for the energy fluctuations of a quantum system scattering inelastically with a particle at arbitrary kinetic energies. In particular, we prove a fluctuation relation describing an asymmetry between energy absorbing and releasing processes which relies on the nonunital nature of the underlying quantum map.