  In this contribution, we aim to illustrate how quantum work statistics can be
used as a tool in order to gain insight on the universal features of
non-equilibrium many-body systems. Focusing on the two point measurement
approach to work, we first outline the formalism and show how the related
irreversible entropy production may be defined for a unitary process. We then
explore the physics of sudden quenches from the point of view of work
statistics and show how the characteristic function of work can be expressed as
the partition function of a corresponding classical statistical physics problem
in a film geometry. Connections to the concept of fidelity susceptibility are
explored along with the corresponding universal critical scaling. We also
review how large deviation theory applied to quantum work statistics gives
further insight to universal properties. The quantum-to- classical mapping
turns out to have close connections with the historical problem of
orthogonality catastrophe: we therefore discuss how this relationship may be
exploited in order to experimentally extract quantum work statistics in
many-body systems.
