Related papers: Second laws under control restrictions
Constructing optimal thermodynamic processes in quantum systems relies on managing the balance between the average excess work and its stochastic fluctuations. Recently it has been shown that two different quantum generalisations of…
The first and second laws of thermodynamics should lead to a consistent scenario for discussing the cosmological constant problem. In the present study, to establish such a thermodynamic scenario, cosmological equations in a flat…
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…
Assuming time-scale separation, a simple and unified theory of thermodynamics and stochastic thermodynamics is constructed for small classical systems strongly interacting with its environment in a controllable fashion. The total…
Materials that are constantly driven out of thermodynamic equilibrium, such as active and living systems, typically violate the Einstein relation. This may arise from active contributions to particle fluctuations which are unrelated to the…
We study dynamic cooling, where an externally driven two-level system is cooled via reservoir, a quantum system with initial canonical equilibrium state. We obtain explicitly the minimal possible temperature $T_{\rm min}>0$ reachable for…
In many real-world situations, there are constraints on the ways in which a physical system can be manipulated. We investigate the entropy production (EP) and extractable work involved in bringing a system from some initial distribution $p$…
Active control of quantum systems enables diverse applications ranging from quantum computation to manipulation of molecular processes. Maximum speeds and related bounds have been identified from uncertainty principles and related…
The thermodynamics of quantum systems coupled to periodically modulated heat baths and work reservoirs is developed. By identifying affinities and fluxes, the first and second law are formulated consistently. In the linear response regime,…
Conservation of energy under thermal operations, \textbf{TO}, is ensured by commutation of the unitary generating such operations with the total Hamiltonian. However in realistic scenarios, perturbations or disturbances in the system are…
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…
Extending the quantum formulation of [Phys. Rev. X 3, 041003 (2013)] to a more general setting for studying the thermodynamics of information processing including initial correlations, we generalize the second law of thermodynamics to…
The interplay between quantum-mechanical properties, such as coherence, and classical notions, such as energy, is a subtle topic at the forefront of quantum thermodynamics. The traditional Carnot argument limits the conversion of heat to…
Thermodynamic behaviors in a quantum Brownian motion coupled to a classical heat bath is studied. We then define a heat operator by generalizing the stochastic energetics and show the energy balance (first law) and the upper bound of the…
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''.…
Even though the second law of thermodynamics holds the supreme position among the laws of nature, as stated by many distinguished scientists, notably Eddington and Einstein, its position appears to be also quite peculiar. Given the atomic…
Fluctuation theorems impose constraints on possible work extraction probabilities in thermodynamical processes. These constraints are stronger than the usual second law, which is concerned only with average values. Here, we show that such…
Many physical, biological, and even social systems are faced with the problem of how to efficiently harvest free energy from an environment that can have many possible states, yet only have a limited number of harvesting protocols to choose…
The third law of thermodynamics has a controversial past and a number of formulations due to Planck, Einstein, and Nernst. It's most accepted version, the unattainability principle, states that "any thermodynamic process cannot reach the…
Even after over 150 years of discussion, the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics continues to be a source of confusion and controversy in physics. This confusion has been accentuated by recent challenges to the second law and…