Related papers: Quantum heat engines and nonequilibrium temperatur…
Quantum thermodynamics supplies a consistent description of quantum heat engines and refrigerators up to the level of a single few level system coupled to the environment. Once the environment is split into three;a hot, cold and work…
We discuss the application of techniques of quantum estimation theory and quantum metrology to thermometry. The ultimate limit to the precision at which the temperature of a system at thermal equilibrium can be determined is related to the…
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…
We study the performance of a quantum Otto cycle using a harmonic work medium and undergoing collisional dynamics with finite-size reservoirs. We span the dynamical regimes of the work strokes from strongly non-adiabatic to quasi-static…
A large class of isolated quantum system in a pure state can equilibrate and serve as a heat bath. We show that once the equilibrium is reached, any of its subsystems that is much smaller than the isolated system is thermalized such that…
In this work we present a formalism to describe non equilibrium conditions in systems with a discretized energy spectrum, such as quantum systems. We develop a formalism based on a combination of Gibbs-Shannon entropy and information…
After a brief historical perspective, we introduce the key notions of work and heat for quantum systems, to then apply them to quantum engines operating on quantum Otto and Carnot cycles. The irreversible and dissipative character of the…
A quasi-static process is realized in a purely quantum-mechanical model which is described by oscillator (or particle) systems having relative-phase interactions. Time development of a mixture of two oscillator (or particle) systems which…
We consider quantum systems consisting of a ``small'' system coupled to two reservoirs (called open systems). We show that such a system has no equilibrium states normal with respect to any state of the decoupled system in which the…
Quantum cycles in established heat engines can be modeled with various quantum systems as working substances. For example, a heat engine can be modeled with an infinite potential well as the working substance to determine the efficiency and…
A quantum two-level system with periodically modulated energy splitting could provide a minimal universal quantum heat machine. We present the experimental realization and the theoretical description of such a two-level system as an…
We present a theoretical and numerical analysis of a quantum system that is capable of functioning as a heat engine. This system could be realized experimentally using cold bosonic atoms confined to a double well potential that is created…
We discuss the possibility of defining an emergent local temperature in extended quantum many-body systems evolving out of equilibrium. For the most simple case of free-fermionic systems, we give an explicit formula for the effective…
We discuss how the thermalization of an elementary quantum system is modified when the system is placed in an environment out of thermal equilibrium. To this aim we provide a detailed investigation of the dynamics of an atomic system placed…
Recently, Zhang {\em et al.} [PRA, {\bf 75}, 062102 (2007)] extended Kieu's interesting work on the quantum Otto engine [PRL, {\bf 93}, 140403 (2004)] by considering as working substance a bipartite quantum system $AB$ composed of…
Temperature uncertainty of a quantum system in canonical ensemble is inversely determined by its energy fluctuation, which is known as the temperature-energy uncertainty relation. No such uncertainty relation was discovered for a…
Quantum heat engines (QHE) are thermal machines where the working substance is quantum. In the extreme case the working medium can be a single particle or a few level quantum system. The study of QHE has shown a remarkable similarity with…
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the development of techniques which transfer trapped particles to very low temperatures. Here we focus our attention on a heating mechanism which contributes to the finite temperature limit…
Quantum thermodynamics studies quantum effects in thermal machines. But when is a heat engine, which cyclically interacts with external reservoirs that unavoidably destroy its quantum coherence, really quantum? We here use the Leggett-Garg…
Ultrafast laser radiation or beams of fast charged particles primarily excite the electronic system of a solid driving the target transiently out of thermal equilibrium. Apart from the nonequilibrium between the electrons and atoms, each…