Related papers: Quantum mechanical evolution towards thermal equil…
The problem of mutual equilibration between two finite, identical quantum systems, A and B, prepared initially at different temperatures is elucidated. We show that the process of energy exchange between the two systems leads to accurate…
When a thermodynamic system is released from any constraint, after some time its evolution will render it into an equilibrium state. Although the description of this relaxation to thermodynamic equilibrium has been attempted through both…
The project concerns the interplay among quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, in isolated quantum systems. The underlying goal is to improve our understanding of the concept of thermal equilibrium in quantum systems.…
We review selected advances in the theoretical understanding of complex quantum many-body systems with regard to emergent notions of quantum statistical mechanics. We cover topics such as equilibration and thermalisation in pure state…
The phenomenon of universality is one of the most striking in many-body physics. Despite having sometimes wildly different microscopic constituents, systems can nonetheless behave in precisely the same way, with only the variable names…
The usual paradigm of open quantum systems falls short when the environment is actually coupled to additional fields or components that drive it out of equilibrium. Here we explore the simplest such scenario, by considering a two level…
We investigate the dissipative dynamics of a quantum critical system in contact with a thermal bath. In analogy with the standard protocol employed to analyze aging, we study the response of a system to a sudden change of the bath…
Single-qubit thermometry presents the simplest tool to measure the temperature of thermal baths with reduced invasivity. At thermal equilibrium, the temperature uncertainty is linked to the heat capacity of the qubit, however the best…
Heat flow between a large ``bath'' and a smaller system brings them progressively closer to thermal equilibrium while increasing their entropy. Deviations from this trend are fluctuations involving a small fraction of a statistical ensemble…
A model for the thermodynamics of a quantum heat bath is introduced. Under the assumption that the bath molecules have finitely many degrees of freedom and are weakly interacting, we present a general derivation of the equation of state of…
Quantum thermodynamics is an emerging research field aiming to extend standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to ensembles of sizes well below the thermodynamic limit, in non-equilibrium situations, and with the full…
A model computational quantum thermodynamic network is constructed with two variable temperature baths coupled by a linker system, with an asymmetry in the coupling of the linker to the two baths. It is found in computational simulations…
When a physical system is put in contact with a very large thermal bath, it undergoes a dissipative (i.e., an apparently irreversible) process that leads to thermal equilibrium. This dynamical process can be described fully within quantum…
The theory of quantum thermodynamics investigates how the concepts of heat, work, and temperature can be carried over to the quantum realm, where fluctuations and randomness are fundamentally unavoidable. These lecture notes provide an…
The dynamical convergence of a system to the thermal distribution, or Gibbs state, is a standard assumption across all of the physical sciences. The Gibbs state is determined just by temperature and the system's energies alone. But at…
We consider a quantum system weakly coupled to a large heat bath of harmonic oscillators. It is well known that such a boson bath initially at thermal equilibrium thermalises the system. We show that assuming a priori an equilibrium state…
We study the internal dynamics of an elementary quantum system placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding radiation. We derive general expressions for lifetime and density matrix valid for bodies of…
Understanding how macroscopic systems exhibit irreversible thermal behavior has been a long-standing challenge, first brought to prominence by Boltzmann. Recent advances have established rigorous conditions for isolated quantum systems to…
For open quantum systems coupled to a thermal bath at inverse temperature $\beta$, it is well known that under the Born-, Markov-, and secular approximations the system density matrix will approach the thermal Gibbs state with the bath…
We take the perspective of open quantum systems and examine from their nonequilibrium dynamics the conditions when the physical quantities, their relations and the laws of thermodynamics become well defined and viable for quantum many body…