Related papers: Irreversible work and inner friction in quantum th…
We investigate the consequences of requiring that a quantum measurement admit an adiabatic enclosure, so that it can be assigned a genuine thermodynamic description in which energy exchange is meaningfully resolved into work and heat. We…
Entropy production is a key quantity in any finite-time thermodynamic process. It is intimately tied with the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, embodying a tool to extend thermodynamic considerations all the way to non-equilibrium…
The relationship between thermodynamics and statistical physics is valid in the thermodynamic limit - when the number of particles becomes very large. Here, we study thermodynamics in the opposite regime - at both the nano scale, and when…
In bipartite quantum systems commutation relations between the Hamiltonian of each subsystem and the interaction impose fundamental constraints on the dynamics of each partition. Here we investigate work, heat and entropy production in…
Entropy production quantifies the amount of irreversibility of a physical process, leading to fundamental bounds for thermodynamic quantities. It captures the inability to run a physical system forward and then backward, bringing it to the…
How to rigorously define thermodynamic quantities such as heat, work, and internal energy in open quantum systems driven far from equilibrium remains a significant open question in quantum thermodynamics. Heat is a quantity whose…
We formulate a geometric framework for quasistatic thermodynamics in open quantum systems by parameterizing the dynamics on a control manifold. In the quasistatic limit, the system follows a manifold of stationary states, and the work…
The thermodynamic properties of quantum heat engines are stochastic owing to the presence of thermal and quantum fluctuations. We here experimentally investigate the efficiency and nonequilibrium entropy production statistics of a spin-1/2…
Thermodynamics of quantum systems out-of-equilibrium is very important for the progress of quantum technologies, however, the effects of many body interactions and their interplay with temperature, different drives and dynamical regimes is…
Constraints on work extraction are fundamental to our operational understanding of the thermodynamics of both classical and quantum systems. In the quantum setting, finite-time control operations typically generate coherence in the…
The aim of this paper is to determine lost works in a molecular engine and compare results with macro (classical) heat engines. Firstly, irreversible thermodynamics are reviewed for macro and molecular cycles. Secondly, irreversible…
Thermodynamics teaches that if a system initially off-equilibrium is coupled to work sources, the maximum work that it may yield is governed by its energy and entropy. For finite systems this bound is usually not reachable. The maximum…
We consider thermal relaxation process of a quantum system attached to a single or multiple reservoirs. Quantifying the degree of irreversibility by entropy production, we prove that the irreversibility of the thermal relaxation is…
The asymmetry between heating and cooling in open quantum systems is a hallmark of nonequilibrium dynamics, yet its thermodynamic origin has remained unclear. Here, we investigate the thermalization of a quantum system weakly coupled to a…
Control of open quantum systems is an essential ingredient to the realization of contemporary quantum science and technology. We demonstrate such control by employing a thermodynamically consistent framework, taking into account the fact…
Despite the increasing interest, the research field which studies the concepts of work and heat at quantum level has suffered from two main drawbacks: first, the difficulty to properly define and measure the work, heat and internal energy…
We study the role of the initial quantum coherence in coherent processes generated by an external control of some parameters by looking on the thermodynamic work done. We start by taking in exam an active state and we isolate the…
We model the dynamics of a closed quantum system brought out of mechanical equilibrium, undergoing a non-driven, spontaneous, thermodynamic transformation. In particular, we consider a quantum particle in a box with a moving and insulating…
The role of quantum entanglement in thermodynamical systems remains elusive. Does entanglement result in thermodynamic advantages or does it impose fundamental limitations? Here, we unambiguously quantify the amount of heat and work in a…
Although nonequilibrium work and fluctuation relations have been studied in detail within classical statistical physics, extending these results to open quantum systems has proven to be conceptually difficult. For systems that undergo…