Related papers: The thermodynamic cost of measurements
Thermodynamic parameters such as temperature and pressure can be defined from the statistical behavior of a system. Therefore, thermal fluctuation is an inseparable characteristic of these parameters which eventually finds its way into…
We propose a setup based on two coupled quantum dots where thermodynamics of a measurement can be quantitatively characterized. The information obtained in the measurement can be utilized by performing feedback in a manner apparently…
The energy of a finite system thermally connected to a thermal reservoir may fluctuate, while the temperature is a constant representing a thermodynamic property of the reservoir. The finite system can also be used as a thermometer for the…
In Szilard's engine, measurement and feedback allows to extract work from an equilibrium environment, a process otherwise forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics. Recent theoretical developments have established fluctuation theorems and…
Traditional thermodynamics governs the behaviour of large systems that evolve between states of thermal equilibrium. For these large systems, the mean values of thermodynamic quantities (such as work, heat and entropy) provide a good…
We discuss work performed on a quantum two-level system coupled to multiple thermal baths. To evaluate the work, a measurement of photon exchange between the system and the baths is envisioned. In a realistic scenario, some photons remain…
In the standard framework of thermodynamics the work produced or consumed in a process is a random variable whose average value is bounded by the change in the free energy of the system. This work is calculated without regard for the size…
We consider stochastic thermodynamics as a theory of statistical inference for experimentally observed fluctuating time-series. To that end, we introduce a general framework for quantifying the knowledge about the dynamical state of the…
The existence of fluctuations of temperature has been a somewhat controversial topic in thermodynamics but nowadays it is recognized that they must be taken into account in small, finite systems. Although for nonequilibrium steady states…
Fluctuation theorems are fundamental extensions of the second law of thermodynamics for small nonequilibrium systems. While work and heat are equally important forms of energy exchange, fluctuation relations have not been experimentally…
A Szilard Engine is a hypothetical device which is able to extract work from a single thermal reservoir by measuring the position of particles within the engine. We derive the amount of work that can be extracted from such a device in the…
From synthetic active devices such as self-propelling Janus colloids to micro-organisms like bacteria, micro-algae, living cells in tissues, active fluctuations are ubiquitous. Thermodynamics of small systems involving thermal as well as…
From the perspective of quantum thermodynamics, realisable measurements cost work and result in measurement devices that are not perfectly correlated with the measured systems. We investigate the consequences for the estimation of work in…
We introduce and solve a model of a thermometric measurement on a driven glassy system in a stationary state. We show that a thermometer with a sufficiently slow response measures a temperature higher than that of the environment, but that…
Thermodynamic uncertainty relations quantify how the signal-to-noise ratio of a given observable is constrained by dissipation. Fluctuation relations generalize the second law of thermodynamics to stochastic processes. We show that any…
Fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities become non-negligible and play an important role when the system size is small. We develop finite-time thermodynamics of fluctuations in microscopic heat engines whose environmental temperature and…
Thermodynamic length is a path function that generalizes the notion of length to the surface of thermodynamic states. Here, we show how to measure thermodynamic length in far-from-equilibrium single molecule experiments using the work…
The efficiency statistics of a small thermodynamic machine has been recently investigated assuming that the total dissipation was a linear combination of two currents: the input and output currents. Here, we relax this standard assumption…
The postulational basis of classical thermodynamics has been expanded to incorporate equilibrium fluctuations. The main additional elements of the proposed thermodynamic theory are the concept of quasi-equilibrium states, a definition of…
The large-deviation method can be used to study the measurement trajectories of open quantum systems. For optical arrangements this formalism allows to describe the long time properties of the (non-equilibrium) photon counting statistics in…