Related papers: Efficiency Statistics and Bounds for Systems with …
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Boltzmann explained how irreversible macroscopic laws, in particular the second law of thermodynamics, originate in the time-reversible laws of microscopic physics. Boltzmann's analysis,…
Conversion of chemical energy into mechanical work is the fundamental mechanism of several natural phenomena at the nanoscale, like molecular machines and Brownian motors. Quantum mechanical effects are relevant for optimising these…
The second law of thermodynamics points to the existence of an `arrow of time', along which entropy only increases. This arises despite the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) of the microscopic laws of nature. Within quantum theory, TRS underpins…
Fundamental laws of physics are symmetric under time reversal ($T$) symmetry, but the $T$ symmetry is strongly broken in the macroscopic world. In this Perspective, I review $T$ symmetry breaking frameworks: \textit{second law of…
Machines are only Carnot efficient if they are reversible, but then their power output is vanishingly small. Here we ask, what is the maximum efficiency of an irreversible device with finite power output? We use a nonlinear scattering…
We consider the efficiency at maximum power of a quantum Otto engine, which uses a spin or a harmonic system as its working substance and works between two heat reservoirs at constant temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$ $ (<T_h)$. Although the…
We assume that markovian dynamics on a finite graph enjoys a gauge symmetry under local scalings of the probability density, derive the transformation law for the transition rates and interpret the thermodynamic force as a gauge potential.…
We study the thermodynamics of open systems weakly driven out-of-equilibrium by nonconservative and time-dependent forces using the linear regime of stochastic thermodynamics. We make use of conservation laws to identify the potential and…
Finite thermostats are studied in the context of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. Entropy production rate has been identified with the mechanical quantity expressed by the phase space contraction rate and the currents have been linked…
This paper discusses the thermodynamic irreversibility realized in high-dimensional Hamiltonian systems with a time-dependent parameter. A new quantity, the irreversible information loss, is defined from the Lyapunov analysis so as to…
Quantum mechanics still provides new unexpected effects when considering the transport of energy and information. Models of continuous time quantum walks, which implicitly use time-reversal symmetric Hamiltonians, have been intensely used…
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…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
For thermoelectric power generation in a multi-terminal geometry, strong numerical evidence for a universal bound as a function of the magnetic-field induced asymmetry of the non-diagonal Onsager coefficients is presented. This bound…
We study the efficiency fluctuations of a stochastic heat engine made of $N$ interacting unicyclic machines and undergoing a phase transition in the macroscopic limit. Depending on $N$ and on the observation time, the machine can explore…
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…
It is proven, without using the microscopic reversibility argument of Onsager, that lossy reciprocal systems have a hidden time-reversal symmetry. The key idea is that the dissipation channels of lossy dielectrics can be mimicked by a…
Motivated by entropic optimal transport, time reversal of diffusion processes is revisited. An integration by parts formula is derived for the carr\'e du champ of a Markov process in an abstract space. It leads to a time reversal formula…
Informational dependence between statistical or quantum subsystems can be described with Fisher matrix or Fubini-Study metric obtained from variations of the sample/configuration space coordinates. Using these non-covariant objects as…
The efficiency of microscopic heat engines in a thermally heterogenous environment is considered. We show that, as a consequence of the recently discovered entropic anomaly, quasi-static engines, whose efficiency is maximal in a fluid at…