Related papers: Universality of efficiency at maximum power: Macro…
Active matter generates order or patterns through nonequilibrium dynamics. An open research challenge is to determine how efficiently a nonequilibrium self-organising system can convert consumed energy into macroscopic order. We study an…
A multiscale theory of interacting continuum mechanics and thermodynamics of mixtures of fluids, electrodynamics, polarization and magnetization is proposed. The mechanical (reversible) part of the theory is constructed in a purely…
We experimentally demonstrate that highly structured distributions of work emerge during even the simple task of erasing a single bit. These are signatures of a refined suite of time-reversal symmetries in distinct functional classes of…
We analyze, from the thermodynamical point of view, mechanical systems in which there is production of mechanical energy due to an internal source of energy, and compare that analysis with the similar one for the "symmetric" motion which…
The majority of experiments in fundamental science today are designed to be multi-purpose: their aim is not simply to measure a single physical quantity or process, but rather to enable increased precision in the measurement of a number of…
The Carnot statement of the second law of thermodynamics poses an upper limit on the efficiency of all heat engines. Recently, it has been studied whether generic quantum features such as coherence and quantum entanglement could allow for…
The concepts of weighted reciprocal of temperature and weighted thermal flux are proposed for a heat engine operating between two heat baths and outputting mechanical work. With the aid of these two concepts, the generalized thermodynamic…
We investigate the thermodynamic efficiency of sub-micro-scale heat engines operating under the conditions described by over-damped stochastic thermodynamics. We prove that at maximum power the efficiency obeys for constant isotropic…
The reversibility and recurrence paradoxes are key issues that have been left unsolved in researches on the foundation of thermodynamics since the 19th century. This article shows that (1) the reversibility paradox can be overcome if we pay…
The performance of endoreversible thermal machines operating at finite power constitutes one of the main challenges of nonequilibrium classical and quantum thermodynamics, engineering and others. We introduce the idea of adjusting the…
Due to the equivalence of the statistical ensembles thermostatic properties of physical systems with short-range interactions can be calculated in different ensembles leading to the same physics. In particular, the ensemble equivalence…
Recent predictions for quantum-mechanical enhancements in the operation of small heat engines have raised renewed interest in their study from both a fundamental perspective and in view of applications. One essential question is whether…
Partial descriptions of the Universe are presented in the form of linear equations considered in the free (full, super) Fock space. The universal properties of these equations are discussed. The closure problem caused by computational and…
The explanation of the apparent universality of thermodynamics points toward the extension of the usual conceptual background of the second law. Arguments are collected that a basic guiding idea of stability of thermodynamic equilibrium…
We develop a geometric framework to describe the thermodynamics of microscopic heat engines driven by slow periodic temperature variations and modulations of a mechanical control parameter. Covering both the classical and the quantum…
We consider a sequence of repeated interactions between an agent and an environment. Uncertainty about the environment is captured by a probability distribution over a space of hypotheses, which includes all computable functions. Given a…
The deterministic and time-reversal symmetric dynamics of isolated quantum systems is at odds with irreversible equilibration observed in generic thermodynamic systems. Standard approaches at a reconciliation employ subjective restrictions…
The higher than classical efficiency exhibited by some quantum algorithms is here ascribed to their non-mechanistic character, which becomes evident by joining the notions of entanglement and quantum measurement. Measurement analogically…
The theory of continuous phase transitions predicts the universal collective properties of a physical system near a critical point, which for instance manifest in characteristic power-law behaviours of physical observables. The…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…