Related papers: Large Deviation implies First and Second Laws of T…
The minimum work principle states that work done on a thermally isolated equilibrium system is minimal for the adiabatically slow (reversible) realization of a given process. This principle, one of the formulations of the second law, is…
A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…
We derive a formulation of the First Law of nonequilibrium thermodynamics for biological information-processing systems by partitioning entropy in the Second Law into microscopic and mesoscopic components and by assuming that natural…
We investigate the performance of an adiabatic evolution protocol when initialized from a Gibbs state at finite temperature. Specifically, we identify the diagonality of the final state in the energy eigenbasis, as well as the difference in…
We extend the tools of quantum resource theories to scenarios in which multiple quantities (or resources) are present, and their interplay governs the evolution of physical systems. We derive conditions for the interconversion of these…
A microscopic definition of the thermodynamic entropy in an isolated quantum system must satisfy (i) additivity, (ii) extensivity and (iii) the second law of thermodynamics. We show that the diagonal entropy, which is the Shannon entropy in…
Statistical mechanics descriptions of the second law of thermodynamics generally imply point-like particles driven by a dissipative overall mechanism for their simultaneous time-evolution. As the number of involved particles grows larger,…
In quantum statistical mechanics, equilibrium states have been shown to be the typical states for a system that is entangled with its environment, suggesting a possible identification between thermodynamic and von Neumann entropies. In this…
The Gibbs distribution universally characterizes states of thermal equilibrium. In order to extend the Gibbs distribution to non-equilibrium steady states, one must relate the self-information $\mathcal{I}(x) = -\log(P_\text{ss}(x))$ of…
A theory for non-equilibrium systems is derived from a maximum entropy approach similar in spirit to the equilibrium theory given by Gibbs. Requiring Hamilton's principle of stationary action to be satisfied on average during a trajectory,…
I argue here that both the first and second laws of thermodynamics, generally understood to be quintessentially physical in nature, can be equally well described as being about certain types of information without the need to invoke…
The possibility of a controlled manipulation with molecules at the nanoscale allows us to gain net work from thermal energy, although this seems to be in contradiction to the Second Law of thermodynamics. Any manipulation, however, causes…
Equilibrium thermodynamics is combined with Jarzynski's irreversible work theorem to quantify the excess entropy produced by irreversible processes. The resulting rectified form of the second law parallels the first law, in the sense that…
We experimentally realize quasistatic adiabatic processes using a single optically-trapped micro- sphere immersed in water whose effective temperature is controlled by an external random electric field. A full energetic characterization of…
It exists a large class of systems for which the traditional notion of extensivity breaks down. From experimental examples we induce two general hypothesis concerning such systems. In the first the existence of an internal coordinate system…
A simple and effective approach to thermodynamics is suggested, which solves the major difficulties in the traditional presentation of the subject. The internal energy is introduced from the behavior of deformable bodies, whereas the…
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,…
A general nonequilibrium thermodynamic theory is developed for time-dependent Langevin dynamics, starting from the common definition of nonequilibrium Gibbs entropy. It is shown that the notations appearing in the First and the Second Law…
Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…
Accurately describing work extraction from a quantum system is a central objective for the extension of thermodynamics to individual quantum systems. The concepts of work and heat are surprisingly subtle when generalizations are made to…