Related papers: Quantum mechanical evolution towards thermal equil…
Thermalization of an isolated quantum system has been a nontrivial problem since the early days of quantum mechanics. In generic isolated quantum systems, nonequilibrium dynamics is expected to result in thermalization, indicating the…
The measurement postulate of quantum theory stands in conflict with the laws of thermodynamics and has evoked debate regarding what actually constitutes a measurement. With the help of modern quantum statistical mechanics, we take the first…
In this article, we briefly review dynamical and thermodynamical aspects of different forms of quantum motors and quantum pumps. We then extend previous results to provide new theoretical tools for a systematic study of those phenomena at…
We consider an isolated, macroscopic quantum system. Let H be a micro-canonical "energy shell," i.e., a subspace of the system's Hilbert space spanned by the (finitely) many energy eigenstates with energies between E and E + delta E. The…
Cooling quantum systems is arguably one of the most important thermodynamic tasks connected to modern quantum technologies and an interesting question from a foundational perspective. It is thus of no surprise that many different…
The first law of thermodynamics imposes not just a constraint on the energy-content of systems in extreme quantum regimes, but also symmetry-constraints related to the thermodynamic processing of quantum coherence. We show that this…
We review the recent progress in the understanding of the relaxation of isolated near-integrable quantum many-body systems. Focusing on prethermalization and universal dynamics following a quench, we describe the experiments with ultracold…
We consider two statistically independent systems described by the same entropy belonging to the two-parameter family of Sharma-Mittal. Assuming a weak interaction among the systems, allowing in this way an exchange of heat and work, we…
The mathematical physics of mechanical systems in thermal equilibrium is a well studied, and relatively easy, subject, because the Gibbs distribution is in general an adequate guess for the equilibrium state. On the other hand, the…
The zeroth principle of thermodynamics in the form "temperature is uniform at equilibrium" is notoriously violated in relativistic gravity. Temperature uniformity is often derived from the maximization of the total number of microstates of…
We consider stationary driven systems in contact with a thermal equilibrium bath. There is a constant (Joule) heat dissipated from the steady system to the environment as long as all parameters are unchanged. As a natural generalization…
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…
We study the problem of the approach to equilibrium in a macroscopic quantum system in an abstract setting. We prove that, for a typical choice of "nonequilibrium subspace", any initial state (from the energy shell) thermalizes, and in fact…
We study two two-level atomic quantum systems (qubits) placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding walls. While at thermal equilibrium the two-qubit dynamics is characterized by not entangled steady…
We characterize the conditions under which a multi-time quantum process with a finite temporal resolution can be approximately described by an equilibrium one. By providing a generalization of the notion of equilibration on average, where a…
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics can provide strong advantages when compared to more standard equilibrium situations. Here, we present a general framework to study its application to concrete problems, which is valid also beyond the…
The time-dependence of correlation functions under the influence of classical equations of motion is described by an exact evolution equation. For conservative systems thermodynamic equilibrium is a fixed point of these equations. We show…
The evolution of a quasi-isolated finite quantum system from a nonequilibrium initial state is considered. The condition of quasi-isolation allows for the description of the system dynamics on the general basis, without specifying the…
One of the main questions of research on quantum many-body systems following unitary out of equilibrium dynamics is to find out how local expectation values equilibrate in time. For non-interacting models, this question is rather well…
We consider two quantum Ising chains initially prepared at thermal equilibrium but with different temperatures and coupled at a given time through one of their end points. In the long-time limit the system reaches a non-equilibrium steady…