Related papers: Quantum heat engines and nonequilibrium temperatur…
We propose a quantum heat engine composed of two superconducting transmission line resonators interacting with each other via an optomechanical-like coupling. One resonator is periodically excited by a thermal pump. The incoherently driven…
We review the non-zero temperature relaxational dynamics of quantum systems near a zero temperature, second-order phase transition. We begin with the quantum Ising chain, for which universal and exact results for the relaxation rates can be…
A heat engine is a machine which uses the temperature difference between a hot and a cold reservoir to extract work. Here both reservoirs are quantum systems and a heat engine is described by a unitary transformation which decreases the…
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…
We quantify the prior information to infer the optimal characteristics for a constrained thermodynamic process of maximum work extraction for a pair of non-identical finite systems. The total entropy of the whole system remains conserved.…
We consider a quantum quench in a system of free bosons, starting from a thermal initial state. As in the case where the system is initially in the ground state, any finite subsystem eventually reaches a stationary thermal state with a…
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…
The thermodynamic properties of quantum heat engines are stochastic owing to the presence of thermal and quantum fluctuations. We here experimentally investigate the efficiency and nonequilibrium entropy production statistics of a spin-1/2…
The work provides an overview on some recent advances in the area of quantum thermodynamics and quantum heat engines. A particular emphasis is put on the possibility of constructing finite time quantum cycles and adiabatic shortcuts. We…
We study the physics of quantum phase transitions from the perspective of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. For first order quantum phase transitions, we find that the average work done per quench in crossing the critical point is…
We present a detailed thermodynamic analysis of a three-level quantum heat engine coupled continuously to hot and cold reservoirs. The system is driven by an oscillating external field and is described by the Markovian quantum master…
Heat exchanges are the essence of Thermodynamics. In order to investigate non-equilibrium effects like quantum coherence and correlations in heat flows we introduce the concept of apparent temperature. Its definition is based on the…
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 apply advanced methods of control theory to open quantum systems and we determine finite-time processes which are optimal with respect to thermodynamic performances. General properties and necessary conditions characterizing optimal…
We study the stochastic energetic exchanges in quantum heat engines. Due to microreversibility, these obey a fluctuation relation, called the heat engine fluctuation relation, which implies the Carnot bound: no machine can have an…
Under the Ansatz that the occupation times of a system with finitely many states are given by the Gibbs distribution, an effective temperature is uniquely determined (up to a choice of scale), and may be computed de novo, without any…
A procedure to find optimal regimes for quantum thermal engines (QTMs) is described and demonstrated. The QTMs are modelled as the periodically-driven non-equilibrium steady states of open quantum systems, whose dynamics is approximated in…
This thesis is devoted to the theoretical study of slow thermodynamic processes in non-equilibrium stochastic systems. Its main result is a physically and mathematically consistent construction of relevant thermodynamic quantities in the…
We study first-order phase transitions in a two-temperature system, where due to the time-scale separation all the basic thermodynamical quantities (free energy, entropy, etc) are well-defined. The sign of the latent heat is found to be…
Quantum heat engines employ as working agents multi-level systems instead of gas-filled cylinders. We consider particularly two-level agents such as electrons immersed in a magnetic field. Work is produced in that case when the electrons…