Related papers: Autonomous quantum clocks: does thermodynamics lim…
Technologies for manipulating single atoms have advanced drastically in the past decades. Due to their excellent controllability of internal states, atoms serve as one of the ideal platforms as quantum systems. One major research direction…
The Thermal Time Hypotheis (TTH) has been proposed as a general method for identifying a time variable from within background-free theories which do not come equipped with a pre-defined clock variable. Here, we explore some implications of…
Classical thermodynamics is unrivalled in its range of applications and relevance to everyday life. It enables a description of complex systems, made up of microscopic particles, in terms of a small number of macroscopic quantities, such as…
The local conservation of a physical quantity whose distribution changes with time is mathematically described by the continuity equation. The corresponding time parameter, however, is defined with respect to an idealized classical clock.…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
Uncertainty relations play a crucial role in quantum mechanics. Well-defined methods exist for the derivation of such uncertainties for pairs of observables. Other approaches also allow the formulation of time-energy uncertainty relations,…
Recently, a thermodynamic definition of time has been introduced. This definition is useful to find approach some open problems in physics. But, it was obtained by a phenomenological approach and a logical inconsistency appears in the…
One of the key objectives in investigating small stochastic systems is the development of micrometer-sized engines and the understanding of their thermodynamics. However, the primary mathematical tool used for this purpose, the overdamped…
Quantum mechanics and general relativity have been each successfully tested in numerous experiments. However, the regime where both theories are jointly required to explain physical phenomena remains untested by laboratory experiments, and…
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…
Energy exchanges under form of heat is neither the most natural or efficient way to operate an engine in the quantum realm. Recently there have been in the literature several proposals for "quantum measurement engines" where energy is fed…
We propose a method to continually monitor the energy of a quantum system. We show that by having some previous knowledge of the system's dynamics, but not all of it, one can use the measured energy to determine many other quantities, such…
The theory of quantum thermodynamics investigates how the concepts of heat, work, and temperature can be carried over to the quantum realm, where fluctuations and randomness are fundamentally unavoidable. These lecture notes provide an…
Time in relativity theory has a status different from that adopted by standard quantum mechanics, where time is considered as a parameter measured with reference to an external absolute Newtonian frame. This status strongly restricts its…
Microscopic thermal machines promise to play an important role in future quantum technologies. Making such devices widely applicable will require effective strategies to channel their output into easily accessible storage systems like…
The familiar textbook quantum mechanics of laboratory measurements incorporates a quantum mechanical arrow of time --- the direction in time in which state vector reduction operates. This arrow is usually assumed to coincide with the…
It has been recently claimed that no protocol for measuring quantum work can satisfy standard required physical principles, casting doubts on the compatibility between quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and the classical limit. In this…
There are two paradigms to study nanoscale engines in stochastic and quantum thermodynamics. Autonomous models, which do not rely on any external time-dependence, and models that make use of time-dependent control fields, often combined…
Several prior attempts to formulate the Laws of Thermodynamics for a small region within a larger quantum system have led to inconsistencies and unexplained infinities. The entropy and external work, in particular, require careful analysis…
We bring a Bayesian approach to the analysis of clocks. Using exponential distributions as priors for clocks, we analyze how well one can keep time with a single qubit freely precessing under a magnetic field. We find that, at least with a…