Related papers: Thermodynamics of discrete quantum processes
At very small scales, thermodynamic energy exchanges like work and heat become comparable to thermal energy of the system, which leads to unusual phenomena like the transient violations of Second Law. We explore the generic characters of…
We present a consistent thermodynamic theory for the resonant level model in the wide band limit, whose level energy is driven slowly by an external force. The problem of defining 'system' and 'bath' in the strong coupling regime is…
We consider the standard thermodynamic processes with constraints, but with additional uncertainty about the control parameters. Motivated by inductive reasoning, we assign prior distribution that provides a rational guess about likely…
A general quantum theory encompassing Mechanics, Thermodynamics and irreversible dynamics is presented in two parts. The first part is concerned exclusively with the description of the states of any individual physical system. It is based…
Theoretical treatments of periodically-driven quantum thermal machines (PD-QTMs) are largely focused on the limit-cycle stage of operation characterized by a periodic state of the system. Yet, this regime is not immediately accessible for…
One of the fundamental questions in the emerging field of quantum thermodynamics is the role played by coherence in energetic processes that occur at the quantum level. Here, we address this issue by investigating two different quantum…
From an entropy-based formulation of the first law of thermodynamics in the quantum regime, we investigate the performance of Otto-like and Carnot-like engines for a single-qubit working medium. Within this framework, the first law includes…
We take the perspective of open quantum systems and examine from their nonequilibrium dynamics the conditions when the physical quantities, their relations and the laws of thermodynamics become well defined and viable for quantum many body…
Classical thermodynamics is built with the concept of equilibrium states. However, it is less clear how equilibrium thermodynamics emerges through the dynamics that follows the principle of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we develop a…
We analyze the time-resolved energy transport and the entropy production in ac-driven quantum coherent electron systems coupled to multiple reservoirs at finite temperature. At slow driving we formulate the first and second laws of…
A key objective in nuclear and high-energy physics is to describe nonequilibrium dynamics of matter, e.g., in the early universe and in particle colliders, starting from the Standard Model. Classical-computing methods, via the framework of…
Thermodynamics at the nanoscale is known to differ significantly from its familiar macroscopic counterpart: the possibility of state transitions is not determined by free energy alone, but by an infinite family of free-energy-like…
Almost all processes -- highly correlated, weakly correlated, or correlated not at all---exhibit statistical fluctuations. Often physical laws, such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, address only typical realizations -- as highlighted by…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
The classical thermodynamic laws fail to capture the behavior of systems with energy Hamiltonian which is an explicit function of the temperature. Such Hamiltonian arises, for example, in modeling information processing systems, like…
With a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems undergoing, respectively, quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths at different stages of a cycle, we are able to clarify some…
Thermodynamic resources, beyond their well-known usefulness in work extraction and other thermodynamic tasks, are often important also in tasks that are not evidently thermodynamic. Here we develop a framework for identifying such resources…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate interrelations. Often thermodynamics is considered to be the logical premise to justify that information is physical - through Landauer's principle -, thereby also linking information and…
Mesoscopic thermoelectric heat engine is much anticipated as a device that allows us to utilize with high efficiency wasted heat inaccessible by conventional heat engines. However, the derivation of the heat current in this engine seems to…
Several models of quantum open systems are known at present to violate, according to principles of the standard quantum theory of open systems, the second law of thermodynamics. Here, a new and rather trivial model of another type is…