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We show that coupled two level systems like qubits studied in quantum information can be used as a thermodynamic machine. At least three qubits or spins are necessary and arranged in a chain. The system is interfaced between two split baths…
We present a consistent thermodynamic theory for the resonant level model in the wide band limit, whose level energy is driven slowly by an external force. The problem of defining 'system' and 'bath' in the strong coupling regime is…
The Brownian motion of a harmonically bound quantum particle and coupled to a harmonic quantum bath is exactly solvable. At low enough temperatures the stationary state is non-Gibbsian due to an entanglement with the bath. This happens when…
Thermal operations are a generic description for allowed state transitions under thermodynamic restrictions. However, the quest for simpler methods to encompass all these processes remains unfulfilled. We resolve this challenge through the…
The resource theory of quantum thermodynamics has been a very successful theory and has generated much follow-up work in the community. It requires energy-preserving unitary operations to be implemented over a system, bath, and catalyst as…
We introduce an alternative way to understand the decomposition of a quantum system into interacting parts and show that it is natural in several physical models. This enables us to define a reduced density operator for a working system…
Quantum thermal states are known to be passive, as required by the second law of thermodynamics. This paper investigates the potential for work extraction by coupling a thermal bath to a qubit of either spin, fermionic, or topological type,…
Macroscopic cyclic heat engines have been a major motivation for the emergence of thermodynamics. In the last decade, cyclic heat engines that have large fluctuations and operate at finite time were studied within the more modern framework…
One of the principal objectives of quantum thermodynamics is to explore quantum effects and their potential beneficial role in thermodynamic tasks like work extraction or refrigeration. So far, even though several papers have already shown…
Violations of the second law of thermodynamics for small systems well below the thermodynamic limit has already been experimentally observed. However, the effects of such violations on experimentally measurable quantities have not been…
The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations play on the dynamics of small systems. We…
For open quantum systems coupled to a thermal bath at inverse temperature $\beta$, it is well known that under the Born-, Markov-, and secular approximations the system density matrix will approach the thermal Gibbs state with the bath…
Temperature is usually defined for physical systems at thermal equilibrium. Nevertheless one may wonder if it would be possible to attribute a meaningful notion of temperature to an arbitrary quantum state, beyond simply the thermal (Gibbs)…
The usual paradigm of open quantum systems falls short when the environment is actually coupled to additional fields or components that drive it out of equilibrium. Here we explore the simplest such scenario, by considering a two level…
The "thermal operations" framework developed in past works is used to model the evolution of microscopic quantum systems in contact with thermal baths. Here we extend this model to bipartite devices with one part acting as a control…
Once in its non-equilibrium steady state, a nanoscale system coupled to several heat baths may be thought-of as a quantum heat pump. Depending on the direction of its stationary heat flows it may function as e.g. a refrigerator or a heat…
The treatment of quantum thermodynamic systems beyond weak coupling is of increasing relevance, yet extremely challenging. The evaluation of thermodynamic quantities in strong-coupling regimes requires a nonperturbative knowledge of the…
Quantum thermalization describes how closed quantum systems can effectively reach thermal equilibrium, resolving the apparent incongruity between the reversibility of Schr\"odinger's equation and the second law of thermodynamics. Despite…
Thermodynamics allows the application of Statistical Mechanics to finite and even small systems. As surface effects cannot be scaled away, one has to be careful with the standard arguments of splitting a system into two or bringing two…
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…