Related papers: Quantum heat engines and nonequilibrium temperatur…
The aim of this paper is to determine lost works in a molecular engine and compare results with macro (classical) heat engines. Firstly, irreversible thermodynamics are reviewed for macro and molecular cycles. Secondly, irreversible…
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…
The possibility of maintaining entanglement in a quantum system at finite, even high, temperatures -- the so-called `hot entanglement' -- has obvious practical interest, but also requires closer theoretical scrutiny. Since quantum…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a single particle with two available energy levels, in contact with a classical (Maxwell-Boltzmann) or quantum (Bose-Einstein) heat bath. The particle can undergo transitions between the levels…
We introduce thermometers to define the local temperature of an electronic system driven out-of-equilibrium by local AC fields. We also define the effective temperature in terms of a local fluctuation-dissipation-relation. We show that…
Quantum heat engines form an active field of research due to their potential applications. There are several phenomena that are unique to the quantum regime, some of which are known to give these engines an edge over their classical…
We have developed a theoretical formalism to introduce temperature as a parameter into the framework of non-relativistic quantum mechanics using the laws of classical thermodynamics and the canonical ensemble scheme of statistical…
Heat capacities of model systems with finite numbers of effective degrees of freedom are evaluated using canonical and microcanonical thermodynamics. Discrepancies between both approaches, which are observed even in the infinite-size limit,…
We show the existence of an entangled nonequilibrium state at very high temperatures when two linearly coupled harmonic oscillators are parametrically driven and dissipate into two independent heat baths. This result has a twofold meaning:…
We propose a four level quantum heat engine in Otto cycle with a working substance of two spins subject to an external magnetic field and coupled to each other by a one-axis twisting spin squeezing nonlinear interaction. We calculate the…
We introduce a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems, the simplest of quantum mechanical systems, undergoing quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths, respectively, at…
We investigate various possible definitions of an effective temperature for a particularly simple nonequilibrium stationary system, namely a heated Brownian particle suspended in a fluid. The effective temperature based on the fluctuation…
Once in its non-equilibrium steady state, a nanoscale system coupled to several heat baths may be thought-of as a quantum heat pump. Depending on the direction of its stationary heat flows it may function as e.g. a refrigerator or a heat…
Nonequilibrium dynamics of a nonintegrable system without the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is studied. It is shown that, in the thermodynamic limit, this model thermalizes after an arbitrary quantum quench at finite temperature,…
An equilibrium state can be represented by a pure quantum state, which we call a thermal pure quantum (TPQ) state. We propose a new TPQ state and a simple method of obtaining it. A single realization of the TPQ state suffices for…
Thermodynamical equilibrium is considered as an effect of quantum entangling of the vacuum state of a system. An explicit mathematical model of multi- particle entangled pure quantum states is developed and analyzed. In the framework, the…
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…
An intriguing phenomenon in non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics is the asymmetry of thermal processes. Relaxation to thermal equilibrium is the most important dissipative process, being a key concept for the design of heat engines and…
In the quest for high-performance quantum thermal machines, looking for an optimal thermodynamic efficiency is only part of the issue. Indeed, at the level of quantum devices, fluctuations become extremely relevant and need to be taken into…
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…