Quantum thermodynamics: thermodynamics at the nanoscale
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2009-11-10 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Quantum Physics
Abstract
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''. 2) In work extraction from two-temperature setups, the presence of correlations can push the effective efficiency beyond the Carnot bound. 3) In the presence of level crossing, non-slow changes may be more optimal than slow ones.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0402387,
title = {Quantum thermodynamics: thermodynamics at the nanoscale},
author = {A. E. Allahverdyan and R. Balian and Th. M. Nieuwenhuizen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0402387},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages. Talk given at Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE2004), Snowbird, by Th.M. Nieuwenhuizen