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Related papers: Limits to catalysis in quantum thermodynamics

200 papers

A new microcanonical equilibrium state is introduced for quantum systems with finite-dimensional state spaces. Equilibrium is characterised by a uniform distribution on a level surface of the expectation value of the Hamiltonian. The…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-10-25 Dorje C. Brody , Daniel W. Hook , Lane P. Hughston

Accurately describing work extraction from a quantum system is a central objective for the extension of thermodynamics to individual quantum systems. The concepts of work and heat are surprisingly subtle when generalizations are made to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-03-30 Felix C. Binder , Sai Vinjanampathy , Kavan Modi , John Goold

Several prior attempts to formulate the Laws of Thermodynamics for a small region within a larger quantum system have led to inconsistencies and unexplained infinities. The entropy and external work, in particular, require careful analysis…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-06-26 Parth Kumar , Charles A. Stafford

Classical thermodynamics is unrivalled in its range of applications and relevance to everyday life. It enables a description of complex systems, made up of microscopic particles, in terms of a small number of macroscopic quantities, such as…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-01-13 James Millen , André Xuereb

This book provides an introduction to the emerging field of quantum thermodynamics, with particular focus on its relation to quantum information and its implications for quantum computers and next generation quantum technologies. The text,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-08 Sebastian Deffner , Steve Campbell

A catalyst is a substance that enables otherwise impossible transformations between states of a system, without being consumed in the process. In this work, we apply the notion of catalysts to many-body quantum physics. In particular, we…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-06-19 David T. Stephen , Rahul Nandkishore , Jian-Hao Zhang

One of the principal objectives of quantum thermodynamics is to explore quantum effects and their potential beneficial role in thermodynamic tasks like work extraction or refrigeration. So far, even though several papers have already shown…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-04-22 C. L. Latune , I. Sinayskiy , F. Petruccione

Feedback cooling plays a critical role in stabilizing quantum systems and achieving low temperatures, where a key question is to determine the fundamental thermodynamic limits on cooling performance. We establish a fundamental bound on…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-09-08 Kousuke Kumasaki , Toshihiro Yada , Ken Funo , Takahiro Sagawa

Thermodynamical equilibrium is considered as an effect of quantum entangling of the vacuum state of a system. An explicit mathematical model of multi- particle entangled pure quantum states is developed and analyzed. In the framework, the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 A. Yu. Bogdanov , Yu. I. Bogdanov , K. A. Valiev

A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 A. E. Allahverdyan , R. Balian , Th. M. Nieuwenhuizen

Thermodynamics is traditionally constrained to the study of macroscopic systems whose energy fluctuations are negligible compared to their average energy. Here, we push beyond this thermodynamic limit by developing a mathematical framework…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-11-28 Christopher T. Chubb , Marco Tomamichel , Kamil Korzekwa

Due to conservation of energy we cannot directly turn a quantum system with a definite energy into a superposition of different energies. However, if we have access to an additional resource in terms of a system with a high degree of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-10-21 Johan Aberg

Quantum thermodynamics addresses the emergence of thermodynamical laws from quantum mechanics. The link is based on the intimate connection of quantum thermodynamics with the theory of open quantum systems. Quantum mechanics inserts…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-24 Ronnie Kosloff

We introduce the resource-theoretic free energy of a quantum channel as the maximal work extractable from the channel as its output equilibrates to a thermal state and its reference system remains locally intact. It is proportional to the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-10-29 Himanshu Badhani , Dhanuja G S , Siddhartha Das

In classical thermodynamics energy always flows from the hotter system to the colder one. However, if these systems are initially correlated, the energy flow can reverse, making the cold system colder and the hot system hotter. This…

Differential geometry offers a powerful framework for optimising and characterising finite-time thermodynamic processes, both classical and quantum. Here, we start by a pedagogical introduction to the notion of thermodynamic length. We…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-08-31 Paolo Abiuso , Harry J. D. Miller , Martí Perarnau-Llobet , Matteo Scandi

Quantum information theory is the study of the achievable limits of information processing within quantum mechanics. Many different types of information can be accommodated within quantum mechanics, including classical information, coherent…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 M. A. Nielsen

Quantum electrodynamics presents intrinsic limitations in the description of physical processes that make it impossible to recover from it the type of description we have in classical electrodynamics. Hence one cannot consider classical…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2017-09-15 Mario Bacelar Valente

Thermal machines are physical systems designed to convert thermal energy into practical work through cyclic state transformations. A key component in such a machine is a clock-equipped control element that dictates which interaction…

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…