Related papers: Fluctuations of the heat exchanged between two qua…
A quantum system can undergo a continuous phase transition at the absolute zero of temperature as some parameter entering its Hamiltonian is varied. These transitions are particularly interesting for, in contrast to their classical finite…
Fluctuation theorems are fundamental extensions of the second law of thermodynamics for small nonequilibrium systems. While work and heat are equally important forms of energy exchange, fluctuation relations have not been experimentally…
At a quantum critical point (QCP) -- a zero-temperature singularity in which a line of continuous phase transition terminates -- quantum fluctuations diverge in space and time, leading to exotic phenomena that can be observed at non-zero…
A general fluctuational-electrodynamic theory is developed to investigate radiative heat exchanges between objects which are assumed small compared with their thermal wavelength (dipolar approximation) in N-body systems immersed in a…
Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…
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…
The well-known formal analogy between time and absolute temperature, existing on the quantum level, is considered as a profound duality relationship requiring some modifications in the conventional quantum dynamics. They consist of tiny…
We report an experimental and theoretical analysis of the energy exchanged between two conductors kept at different temperature and coupled by the electric thermal noise. Experimentally we determine, as functions of the temperature…
In order to better understand the minimal ingredients for thermal rectification, we perform a detailed investigation of a simple spin chain, namely, the open XX model with a Lindblad dynamics involving global dissipators. We use a…
A large class of isolated quantum system in a pure state can equilibrate and serve as a heat bath. We show that once the equilibrium is reached, any of its subsystems that is much smaller than the isolated system is thermalized such that…
A quantum wire is spatially displaced by suitable electric fields with respect to the scatterers inside a semiconductor crystal. As a function of the wire position, the low-temperature resistance shows reproducible fluctuations. Their…
We consider the common spin-1/2 XX-model in one dimension with open boundary conditions and a large but finite number of spins. The system is in thermal equilibrium at times t<0, and is subject to a weak local perturbation (quantum quench)…
The explicit thermodynamic functions, in particular, the specific heat of a spin system interacting with a spin bath which exerts finite dissipation on the system are determined. We show that the specific heat is a sum of the products of a…
Thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs) place strict bounds on the fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities in terms of the associated entropy production. In this work we identify the tightest (and saturable) matrix-valued TUR that can…
At the dawn of thermodynamics, Carnot's constraint on efficiency of heat engines stimulated the formulation of one of the most universal physical principles, the second law of thermodynamics. In recent years, the field of heat engines…
The state of art in studying thermodynamic properties of hot and dense nuclear matter is reviewed with the special emphasis on the confinement-deconfinement transition between hadron matter and quark-gluon plasma. The most popular models…
We investigate theoretically the Seebeck effect in materials close to a ferromagnetic quantum critical point to explain anomalous behaviour at low temperatures. It is found that the main effect of spin fluctuations is to enhance the…
The work is a concept of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. An open question is how to describe the work fluctuation for quantum coherent processes in the presence of initial quantum coherence in the energy basis. With the aim of…
We report a kind of quantum phase transition which takes place in isolated quantum systems with non-thermal equilibrium states and an extra symmetry that commutes with the Hamiltonian for any values of the system parameters. A critical…
We consider blocks of quantum spins in a chain at thermal equilibrium, focusing on their properties from a thermodynamical perspective. Whereas in classical systems the temperature behaves as an intensive magnitude, a deviation from this…