Related papers: Work and reversibility in quantum thermodynamics

The resource-theoretic approach to quantum thermodynamics assumes complete knowledge of the thermal equilibrium against which thermodynamic resources are defined. In practice, however, this state is determined by the system Hamiltonian and…

Several recent results on thermodynamics have been obtained using the tools of quantum information theory and resource theories. So far, the resource theories utilised to describe thermodynamics have assumed the existence of an infinite…

Entropy production is a fundamental concept that plays a crucial role in the second law of thermodynamics and the measure of irreversibility. It imposes rigorous constraints on the kinds of transformations allowed in thermodynamic…

The proper definition of entropy is fundamental to the relationship between statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. It also plays a major role in the recent debate about the validity of the concept of negative temperature. In this paper,…

We discussed the criterion for usefully comparing an irreversible cycle with a reversible one, and show that the lost work cannot be determined by the usual cycle diagrams, contrary to what has been found in the literature. To better…

The sum of the average work dissipated plus the information gained during a thermodynamic process with discrete feedback must exceed zero. We demonstrate that the minimum value of zero is attained only by feedback-reversible processes that…

Entropy production quantifies the amount of irreversibility of a physical process, leading to fundamental bounds for thermodynamic quantities. It captures the inability to run a physical system forward and then backward, bringing it to the…

Passivity is a fundamental concept in thermodynamics that demands a quantum system's energy cannot be lowered by any reversible, unitary process acting on the system. In the limit of many such systems, passivity leads in turn to the concept…

We introduce a reversible theory of exact entanglement manipulation by establishing a necessary and sufficient condition for state transfer under trace-preserving transformations that completely preserve the positivity of partial transpose…

We review and investigate the general theory of thermodynamics of computation, and derive the fundamental inequalities that set the lower bounds of the work requirement and the heat emission during a computation. These inequalities…

Active states, from which work can be extracted by time-dependent perturbations, are an important resource for quantum thermodynamics in the absence of heat baths. Here we characterize this resource, establishing a resource theory that…

The aim of this paper is to determine lost works in a molecular engine and compare results with macro (classical) heat engines. Firstly, irreversible thermodynamics are reviewed for macro and molecular cycles. Secondly, irreversible…

The unavoidable irreversible losses of power in a heat engine are found to be of quantum origin. Following thermodynamic tradition a model quantum heat engine operating by the Otto cycle is analyzed. The working medium of the model is…

With the progress of nano-technology, thermodynamics also has to be scaled down, calling for specific protocols to extract and measure work. Usually, such protocols involve the action of an external, classical field (the battery) of…

Landauer erasure seems to provide a powerful link between thermodynamics and information processing (logical computation). The only logical operations that require a generation of heat are logically irreversible ones, with the minimum heat…

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…

The irreversible work during a driving protocol constitutes one of the most widely studied measures in non-equilibrium thermodynamics, as it constitutes a proxy for entropy production. In quantum systems, it has been shown that the…

A process, carried out in a stepwise manner, becomes quasi-static when the number of intermediate steps tends to infinity. Usually, the net entropy production approaches zero under this limiting condition. Hence, such cases are termed…

Some interactions between classical or quantum fields and matter are known to be irreversible processes. Here we associate an entropy to the electromagnetic field from well-known notions of statistical quantum mechanics, in particular the…

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…