Related papers: Fourier's Law: insight from a simple derivation
In statistical mechanics the zeroth law of thermodynamics is taken as a postulate which, as its name indicates, logically precedes the first and second laws. Treating it as a postulate has consequences for how temperature is introduced into…
We analyze the transport of heat along a chain of particles interacting through anharmonic po- tentials consisting of quartic terms in addition to harmonic quadratic terms and subject to heat reservoirs at its ends. Each particle is also…
The heat equation, based on Fourier's law, is commonly used for description of heat conduction. However, Fourier's law is valid under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium, which is violated in very small dimensions and short…
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. Of particular practical relevance…
Understanding thermodynamics far from equilibrium at the quantum scale remains a fundamental challenge, particularly in the presence of quantum coherence. Here we develop a first-principles framework for nonequilibrium quantum…
We establish quantum thermodynamics for open quantum systems weakly coupled to their reservoirs when the system exhibits degeneracies. The first and second law of thermodynamics are derived, as well as a finite-time fluctuation theorem for…
A low density binary mixture of granular gases is considered within the Boltzmann kinetic theory. One component, the intruders, is taken to be dilute with respect to the other, and thermal segregation of the two species is described for a…
Momentum-conserving one-dimensional models are known to exhibit anomalous Fourier's law, with a thermal conductivity varying as a power law of the system size. Here we measure, by numerical simulations, several cumulants of the heat flux of…
The classical thermodynamic laws fail to capture the behavior of systems with energy Hamiltonian which is an explicit function of the temperature. Such Hamiltonian arises, for example, in modeling information processing systems, like…
The nature of a physical law is examined, and it is suggested that there may not be any fundamental dynamical laws. This explains the intrinsic indeterminism of quantum theory. The probabilities for transition from a given initial state to…
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…
Temperature is a deceptively simple concept that still raises deep questions at the forefront of quantum physics research. The observation of thermalisation in completely isolated quantum systems, such as cold-atom quantum simulators,…
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…
Recent research on the thermodynamic arrow of time, at the microscopic scale, has questioned the universality of its direction. Theoretical studies showed that quantum correlations can be used to revert the natural heat flow (from the hot…
Thermodynamic principles are often deceptively simple and yet surprisingly powerful. We show how a simple rule, such as the net flow of energy in and out of a moving atom under nonequilibrium steady state condition, can expose the…
Quantum thermalization describes how closed quantum systems can effectively reach thermal equilibrium, resolving the apparent incongruity between the reversibility of Schr\"odinger's equation and the second law of thermodynamics. Despite…
We derive the uncertainty relation for a quantum open system comprised of a Brownian particle interacting with a bath of quantum oscillators at finite temperature. We examine how the quantum and thermal fluctuations of the environment…
We study two small quantum systems coupled to the same reservoir which is in thermal equilibrium. By studying the particle density and the energy density in the two systems before and after they contact each other, we find that the two…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
A century ago, it was predicted that the first significant digit appearing in a data would be nonuniformly distributed, with the number one appearing with the highest frequency. This law goes by the name of Benford's law. It holds for data…