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The quantum thermodynamic behavior of small systems is investigated in presence of finite quantum dissipation. We consider the archetype cases of a damped harmonic oscillator and a free quantum Brownian particle. A main finding is that…
The microscopic explanation of entropy has been challenged from both experimental and theoretical point of view. The expression of entropy is derived from the first law of thermodynamics indicating that entropy or the second law of…
Accurately describing work extraction from a quantum system is a central objective for the extension of thermodynamics to individual quantum systems. The concepts of work and heat are surprisingly subtle when generalizations are made to…
This article presents a heuristic combination of the local and global formulations of the second law of thermodynamics that suggests the possibility of theoretical existence of thermodynamics processes with positive and negative entropy…
Second law of thermodynamics is applied to a few electronic processes. It is seen that the second law of thermodynamics holds good for all except one mentioned here. The classical approach, based on exact equivalence of emission and…
The entropy production rate is a key quantity in non-equilibrium thermodynamics of both classical and quantum processes. No universal theory of entropy production is available to date, which hinders progress towards its full grasping. By…
We take the view that the standard von Neumann definition, in which the entropy $S^{vN}$ of a pure state is zero, is in evident conflict with the statement of the second law that the entropy of the universe $S_{univ}$ increases in…
We propose a quantum version of a gedanken experiment which supports the generalized second law of black hole thermodynamics. A quantum measurement of particles in the region outside of the event horizon decreases the entropy of the outside…
Thermodynamics dictates that the specific heat of a system is strictly non-negative. However, in finite classical systems there are well known theoretical and experimental cases where this rule is violated, in particular finite atomic…
The Brownian motion of a quantum particle in a harmonic confining potential and coupled to a harmonic quantum thermal bath is exactly solvable. It is shown that at low enough temperatures the stationary state is non-Gibbsian due to an…
The Kelvin-Planck statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a stricture on the nature of heat receipt by any body suffering a cyclic process. It makes no mention of temperature or of entropy. Beginning with a Kelvin-Planck statement…
We develop a general theory describing the thermodynamical behavior of open quantum systems coupled to thermal baths beyond perturbation theory. Our approach is based on the exact time-local quantum master equation for the reduced open…
The Nernst heat theorem is probed from purely thermodynamic arguments connected with the second law of thermodynamics, and alien to the vanishing of the specific heats, or to the unattainability of the zeroth isotherm. If the proof is…
A pair of symmetric expressions for the second law of thermodynamics is put forward. The conservation and transfer of entropy is discussed and applied to problems like biology, culture and life itself. A new explanation is given to the…
A considerable body of experimental and theoretical work claims the existence of negative absolute temperatures in spin systems and ultra-cold quantum gases. Here, we clarify that such findings can be attributed to the use of a popular yet…
In a macroscopic (quantum or classical) Hamiltonian system, we prove the second law of thermodynamics in the forms of the minimum work principle and the law of entropy increase, under the assumption that the initial state is described by a…
The geometric entropy in quantum field theory is not a Lorentz scalar and has no invariant meaning, while the black hole entropy is invariant. Renormalization of entropy and energy for reduced density matrices may lead to the negative free…
We review the fundamental properties of the quantum relative entropy for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In particular, we focus on several inequalities that are related to the second law of thermodynamics, where the positivity and the…
Bento \textit{et al.} [Phys. Rev. E 91, 022105 (2015)] state that the Tsallis entropy violates the third law of thermodynamics for $q \leq 0$ and $0<q<1$. We show that their results are valid only for $q \geq 1$, since there is no…
Expected utility maximization problems in mathematical finance lead to a generalization of the classical definition of entropy. It is demonstrated that a necessary and sufficient condition for the second law of thermodynamics to operate is…