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Quantum thermal states are known to be passive, as required by the second law of thermodynamics. This paper investigates the potential for work extraction by coupling a thermal bath to a qubit of either spin, fermionic, or topological type,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-29 Jhh-Jing Hong , Feng-Li Lin

In this paper, we consider an optimal control problem in equilibrium thermodynamics of gases. Thermodynamic state of the gas is given by a Legendrian submanifold in a contact thermodynamic space. Using Pontryagin's maximum principle we find…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2020-05-20 Alexei Kushner , Valentin Lychagin , Mikhail Roop

As seasonal thermal energy storage emerges as an efficient solution to reduce CO2 emissions of buildings, challenges appear related to its optimal operation. In a system including short-term electricity storage, long-term heat storage, and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-04-16 Eléa Prat , Pierre Pinson , Richard M. Lusby , Riwal Plougonven , Jordi Badosa , Philippe Drobinski

The minimum amount of thermodynamic work required in order to implement a quantum computation or a quantum state transformation can be quantified using frameworks based on the resource theory of thermodynamics, deeply rooted in the works of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-01-29 Philippe Faist

Numerical hydrodynamics simulations of gases dominated by ideal, nondegenerate matter pressure and thermal radiation pressure in equilibrium entail finding the temperature as part of the evolution. Since the temperature is not typically a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-11-14 Thomas W. Baumgarte , Stuart L. Shapiro

We present a critical examination of the difficulties with the quantum versions of a lifted weight that are widely used as work storage systems in quantum thermodynamics. To overcome those difficulties, we turn to the strong connections…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-06-05 Shang-Yung Wang

We propose a theory based on simple physical arguments that describes a non equilibrium steady-state by a temperature-like parameter (an "effective temperature"). We show how one can predict the effective temperature as a function of the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2012-01-31 Ido Regev , Xiangdong Ding , Turab Lookman

The dynamics of active particles is of interest at many levels and is the focus of theoretical and experimental research. There have been many attempts to describe the dynamics of particles affected by random active forces in terms of an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2020-01-08 Dan Wexler , Nir S. Gov , Kim Ø. Rasmussen , Golan Bel

We analyze the efficiency of thermal engines (either quantum or classical) working with a single heat reservoir like atmosphere. The engine first gets an energy intake, which can be done in arbitrary non-equilibrium way e.g. combustion of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-03-20 Pankaj Mehta , Anatoli Polkovnikov

The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations play on the dynamics of small systems. We…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-09-24 Alberto Rolandi

Quantum work is usually determined from two projective measurements of the energy at the beginning and at the end of a thermodynamic process. However, this paradigm cannot be considered thermodynamically consistent as it does not account…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-07-13 Sebastian Deffner , Juan Pablo Paz , Wojciech H. Zurek

Equalities are generally more suitable for experimental verification than inequalities. In this work, I derive valid equalities from the Euler-Lagrange equation for the optimization of macroscopic thermodynamic averages in weakly driven…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-11-06 Pierre Nazé

Active matter generates order or patterns through nonequilibrium dynamics. An open research challenge is to determine how efficiently a nonequilibrium self-organising system can convert consumed energy into macroscopic order. We study an…

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems · Physics 2026-05-07 Qianyang Chen , Mikhail Prokopenko

This paper provides a derivation of Zipf-Pareto laws directly from the principle of least effort. A probabilistic functional of efficiency is introduced as the consequence of an extension of the nonadditivity of the efficiency of…

Physics and Society · Physics 2022-03-22 Qiuping A. Wang

We obtain generalizations of the Kelvin-Planck, Clausius, and Carnot statements of the second law of thermodynamics, for situations involving information processing. To this end, we consider an information reservoir (representing, e.g. a…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-10-21 Sebastian Deffner , Christopher Jarzynski

Thermodynamics is usually formulated on the presumption that the observer has complete information about the system he/she deals with: no parasitic current, exact evaluation of the forces that drive the system. For example, the acclaimed…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-12-15 Matteo Polettini , Massimiliano Esposito

Statistical thermodynamics delivers the probability distribution of the equilibrium state of matter through the constrained maximization of a special functional, entropy. Its elegance and enormous success have led to numerous attempts to…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-06-22 Themis Matsoukas

We describe a method to computationally estimate the probability density function of a univariate random variable by applying the maximum entropy principle with some local conditions given by Gaussian functions. The estimation errors and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2012-06-21 Mihail-Ioan Pop

An estimate of the maximal informational content available to advanced extraterrestrial or future (post)human civilizations is presented. It is shown that the fundamental thermodynamical considerations may lead to a quantitative estimate of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2023-06-14 Milan M. Cirkovic , Marina Radujkov

We propose and analyze a process that extracts useful work from a single active particle maintained at constant temperature in a harmonic potential by measuring the relative sign of the self-propulsion and the confining force and then…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-03-09 Grzegorz Szamel