Related papers: Virtual qubits, virtual temperatures, and the foun…
Algorithmic entropy can be seen as a special case of entropy as studied in statistical mechanics. This viewpoint allows us to apply many techniques developed for use in thermodynamics to the subject of algorithmic information theory. In…
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 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…
Advantages of quantum effects in several technologies, such as computation and communication, have already been well appreciated, and some devices, such as quantum computers and communication links, exhibiting superiority to their classical…
We propose a magnon-based thermal machine in two-dimensional (2D) magnetic insulators. The thermodynamical cycles are engineered by exposing a magnon spin system to thermal baths at different temperatures and tuning the…
We investigate heat engines whose working substance is made of two coupled qubits performing a generalised Otto cycle by varying their applied magnetic field or their interaction strength during the compression and expansion strokes. During…
We introduce the idea of weakly coherent collisional models, where the elements of an environment interacting with a system of interest are prepared in states that are approximately thermal, but have an amount of coherence proportional to a…
Technological and scientific advances have given rise to an era in which coherent quantum-mechanical phenomena can be probed and experimentally-realised over unprecedented timescales in condensed matter physics. In turn, scientific interest…
A central building block of a heat engine is the working fluid, which mediates the conversion of heat into work. In nanoscale heat engines, the working fluid can be a quantum system whose behavior and dynamics are non-classical. A…
We define a thermostatic system to be a convex space of states together with a concave function sending each state to its entropy, which is an extended real number. This definition applies to classical thermodynamics, classical statistical…
We present a new proposal for distinguishing heat from work based on a control-theoretic observability decomposition. We derive a Hermitian operator representing instantaneous dissipation of observable energy, and suggest a generalization…
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…
A theoretical proposal that Coulomb-coupled quantum dots can be used as quantum probes to determine the temperature of a sample (i.e., an electronic reservoir) is proposed. Through the regulation of the positive or negative voltage bias in…
In a quantum Stirling heat engine, the heat exchanged with two thermal baths is partly utilized for performing work by redistributing the energy levels of the working substance. We analyze the thermodynamics of a quantum Stirling engine…
This work presents a unified perspective on thermal equilibrium and quantum dynamics by examining the simplest quantum system, a qubit, as a minimal model. We show that both the thermal partition function and the Loschmidt amplitude can be…
We experimentally study the ergodic dynamics of a 1D array of 12 superconducting qubits with a transverse field, and identify the regimes of strong and weak thermalization with different initial states. We observe convergence of the local…
Systems at finite temperature make up the vast majority of realistic physical scenarios. Indeed, although zero temperature is often accompanied by simpler mathematics, the richness in physical results is evident when one considers the…
An explicit expression for the temperature of an open two-level quantum system is obtained as a function of local properties, under the hypothesis of weak interaction with the environment. This temperature is defined for both equilibrium…
We adopt a geometric approach to describe the performance of adiabatic quantum machines, operating under slow time-dependent driving and in contact to two or more reservoirs with a temperature bias during all the cycle. We show that the…
We propose a scheme for a quantum thermal machine made by atoms interacting with a single non-equilibrium electromagnetic field. The field is produced by a simple configuration of macroscopic objects held at thermal equilibrium at different…