Related papers: Non-equilibrium quantum systems: Divergence betwee…
An explicit expression is derived for the statistical description of small quantum systems, which are relatively-weakly and directly coupled to only small parts of their environments. The derived expression has a canonical form, but is…
Until recently it was believed that photosynthesis, a fundamental process for life on earth, could be fully understood with semi-classical models. However, puzzling quantum phenomena have been observed in several photosynthetic…
Despite its intrinsic non-equilibrium origin, thermoelectricity in nanoscale systems is usually described within a static scattering approach which disregards the dynamical interaction with the thermal baths that maintain energy flow. Using…
Non-classical correlations in quantum optics as resources for quantum computation are important in the quest for highly-specialized quantum devices. The standard way to investigate such effects relies on either the characterization of the…
The mixing of two different gases is one of the most common natural phenomena, with applications ranging from CO$_2$ capture to water purification. Traditionally, mixing is analyzed in the context of local thermal equilibrium, where systems…
We distinguish a mechanical representation of the world in terms of point masses with positions and momenta and the chemical representation of the world in terms of populations of different individuals, each with intrinsic stochasticity,…
We investigate the relevance of dynamic quantum coherence in the energy transfer efficiency of molecular aggregates. We contrast the dynamics after excitation of a quantum mechanical system with that of a classical system. We demonstrate…
The theoretical and experimental study of energy transfer in photosynthesis has revealed an interesting transport regime, which lies at the borderline between classical transport dynamics and quantum-mechanical interference effects.…
Isolated systems tend to evolve towards equilibrium, a special state that has been the focus of many-body research for a century. Yet much of the richness of the world around us arises from conditions far from equilibrium. Phenomena such as…
The long-standing problem of nearly perfect photosynthetic yield in some types of bacteria and nearly all kinds of plants despite the interaction with a hot and noisy environment has witnessed quantum optical explanations in the last decade…
We develop a general theory describing the thermodynamical behavior of open quantum systems coupled to thermal baths beyond perturbation theory. Our approach is based on the exact time-local quantum master equation for the reduced open…
Heat exchanges are the essence of Thermodynamics. In order to investigate non-equilibrium effects like quantum coherence and correlations in heat flows we introduce the concept of apparent temperature. Its definition is based on the…
Pattern-forming nonequilibrium systems are ubiquitous in nature, from driven quantum matter and biological life forms to atmospheric and interstellar gases. Identifying universal aspects of their far-from-equilibrium dynamics and statistics…
It is argued that the dynamics of an isolated system, due to the concrete procedure by which it is separated from the environment, has a non-Hamiltonian contribution. By a unified quantum field theoretical treatment of typical subdynamics,…
Investigation of simple far-from-equilibrium systems exhibiting phase separation leads to the conclusion that phase coexistence is not well defined in this context. This is because the properties of the coexisting nonequilibrium systems…
A physical system is in local equilibrium if it cannot be distinguished from a global equilibrium by ``infinitesimally localized measurements''. This should be a natural characterization of local equilibrium, but the problem is to give a…
During the long course of evolution, nature has learnt how to exploit quantum effects. In fact, recent experiments reveal the existence of quantum processes whose coherence extends over unexpectedly long time and space ranges. In…
A realist description of our universe requires a twofold concept of locality. On one hand, there are the strictly Einstein-local interactions which generate the time evolution. On the other hand, the quantum state space calls for a…
It is known that temperature estimates of macroscopic systems in equilibrium are most precise when their energy fluctuations are large. However, for nanoscale systems deviations from standard thermodynamics arise due to their interactions…
The process of photosynthesis, the main source of energy in the animate world, converts sunlight into chemical energy. The surprisingly high efficiency of this process is believed to be enabled by an intricate interplay between the quantum…