Related papers: The extraction of work from quantum coherence
The precision of nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems is fundamentally limited, yet how quantum coherence shapes these limits remains largely unexplored. A general theoretical framework is introduced that explicitly links quantum coherence…
Quantum coherence provides a controllable thermodynamic resource that can raise or lower the effective temperature of a cavity mode, enabling efficiency tuning in quantum heat engines. Here, we derive analytic expressions for the effective…
There are both practical and foundational motivations to consider the thermodynamics of quantum systems at small scales. Here we address the issue of autonomous quantum thermal machines that are tailored to achieve some specific…
We present a model for an autonomous quantum thermal machine comprised of two qubits capable of manipulating and even amplifying the local coherence in a non-degenerate external system. The machine uses only thermal resources, namely,…
We investigate the limitations that emerge in thermodynamic tasks as a result of having local control only over the components of a thermal machine. These limitations are particularly relevant for devices composed of interacting many-body…
Quantum coherence is an essential feature of quantum mechanics which is responsible for the departure between classical and quantum world. The recently established resource theory of quantum coherence studies possible quantum technological…
Understanding how coherence of quantum systems affects thermodynamic quantities, such as work and heat, is essential for harnessing quantumness effectively in thermal quantum technologies. Here, we study the unique contributions of quantum…
Whether the strong coupling to thermal baths can improve the performance of quantum thermal machines remains an open issue under active debate. Here, we revisit quantum thermal machines operating with the quasi-static Carnot cycle and aim…
The laws of thermodynamics strongly restrict the performance of thermal machines. Standard thermodynamics, initially developed for uncorrelated macroscopic systems, does not hold for microscopic systems correlated with their environments.…
Thermodynamics teaches that if a system initially off-equilibrium is coupled to work sources, the maximum work that it may yield is governed by its energy and entropy. For finite systems this bound is usually not reachable. The maximum…
Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…
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…
Non-equilibrium effects may have a profound impact on the performance of thermal devices performing thermodynamic tasks such as refrigeration or heat pumping. The possibility of enhancing the performance of thermodynamic operations by means…
We propose a scheme for a quantum thermal machine made by atoms interacting with a single non-equilibrium electromagnetic field. The field is produced by a simple configuration of macroscopic objects held at thermal equilibrium at different…
Carnot's theorem poses a fundamental limit on the maximum efficiency achievable from an engine that works between two reservoirs at thermal equilibrium. We extend this result to the case of arbitrary nonthermal stationary reservoirs, even…
In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…
We introduce the idea of weakly coherent collisional models, where the elements of an environment interacting with a system of interest are prepared in states that are approximately thermal, but have an amount of coherence proportional to a…
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''.…
A quantum-mechanical analog of the Carnot engine reversibly working at vanishing temperature, shortly termed the quantum-mechanical Carnot engine, is discussed. A general formula for the efficiency of such an engine with an arbitrary…
After a brief historical perspective, we introduce the key notions of work and heat for quantum systems, to then apply them to quantum engines operating on quantum Otto and Carnot cycles. The irreversible and dissipative character of the…