Related papers: Reversible work extraction in a hybrid opto-mechan…
The unavoidable irreversible losses of power in a heat engine are found to be of quantum origin. Following thermodynamic tradition a model quantum heat engine operating by the Otto cycle is analyzed. The working medium of the model is…
We consider continuously monitored quantum systems and introduce definitions of work and heat along individual quantum trajectories that are valid for coherent superpositions of energy eigenstates. We use these quantities to extend the…
Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy, as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a "Maxwell's demon" to power a single-temperature heat engine, by decreasing the entropy. Quantum…
Quantum thermodynamics explores novel thermodynamic phenomena that emerge when interactions between macroscopic systems and microscopic quantum ones go into action. Among various issues, quantum heat engines, in particular, have attracted…
A quantum system which can store energy, and from which one can extract useful work, is known as a quantum battery. Such a device raises interesting issues surrounding how quantum physics can provide certain advantages in the charging,…
We introduce a cyclic quantum battery model, based on an interacting bipartite system, weakly coupled to a thermal bath. The working cycle of the battery consists of four strokes: system thermalization, disconnection of subsystems,…
We consider locally thermal states (for two qubits) with certain amount of quantum entanglement present between them. Unlike previous protocols we show how work can be extracted by performing local unitary operations on this state by…
Irreversible effects in thermoelectric materials limit their efficiency and economy for applications in power generation and refrigeration. While electron transport is unavoidably irreversible in bulk materials, here we derive conditions…
Free energy fixes the maximum work of a thermodynamic process once the state and Hamiltonian are specified. A work-extraction task asks a different question: how much average work can a single device realize across several preparations and…
The possibility of extracting more work from a physical system thanks to the information obtained from measurements has been a topic of fundamental interest in the context of thermodynamics since the formulation of the Maxwell's demon…
Quantum thermodynamics can be naturally phrased as a theory of quantum state transformation and energy exchange for small-scale quantum systems undergoing thermodynamical processes, thereby making the resource theoretical approach very well…
We show that work can be extracted from a two-level system (spin) coupled to a bosonic thermal bath. This is possible due to different initial temperatures of the spin and the bath, both positive (no spin population inversion) and is…
There are both practical and foundational motivations to consider the thermodynamics of quantum systems at small scales. Here we address the issue of autonomous quantum thermal machines that are tailored to achieve some specific…
There exist two formulations for quantum heat engine that models an energy transfer between two microscopic systems. One is semi-classical scenario, and the other is full quantum scenario. The former is formulated as a unitary evolution for…
We study the maximum efficiency of a Carnot cycle heat engine based on a small system. It is revealed that due to the finiteness of the system, irreversibility may arise when the working substance contacts with a heat bath. As a result,…
We propose a quantum harmonic oscillator measurement engine fueled by simultaneous quantum measurements of the non-commuting position and momentum quadratures of the quantum oscillator. The engine extracts work by moving the harmonic trap…
We experimentally realize protocols that allow to extract work beyond the free energy difference from a single electron transistor at the single thermodynamic trajectory level. With two carefully designed out-of-equilibrium driving cycles…
The reduced state of a small system strongly coupled to a charger in thermal equilibrium may be athermal and used as a small battery once disconnected. By harnessing the battery-charger correlations, the battery's extractable energy can…
We investigate the thermodynamics of a hybrid quantum device consisting of two qubits collectively interacting with a quantum rotor and coupled dissipatively to two equilibrium reservoirs at different temperatures. By modelling the dynamics…
In a recent paper [Vaikuntanathan and Jarzynski, Phys. Rev. E {\bf 83}, 061120 (2011), arXiv:1105.1744] a model was introduced whereby work could be extracted from a thermal bath by measuring the energy of a particle that was thermalized by…