Related papers: Quantum thermodynamics with local control
The second law of thermodynamics, formulated as an ultimate bound on the maximum extractable work, has been rigorously derived in multiple scenarios. However, the unavoidable limitations that emerge due to the lack of control on small…
We derive a bound on the efficiency of thermal engines that can be sharper than Carnot's limit. It is a function of statistical correlations between the engine internal state and Hamiltonian, can be saturated even in finite-time cycles, and…
Thermodynamics is traditionally concerned with systems comprised of a large number of particles. Here we present a framework for extending thermodynamics to individual quantum systems, including explicitly a thermal bath and work-storage…
Constraints on work extraction are fundamental to our operational understanding of the thermodynamics of both classical and quantum systems. In the quantum setting, finite-time control operations typically generate coherence in the…
The interplay between quantum-mechanical properties, such as coherence, and classical notions, such as energy, is a subtle topic at the forefront of quantum thermodynamics. The traditional Carnot argument limits the conversion of heat to…
Extracting useful work from quantum systems is a fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics. In scenarios where rapid protocols are desired -- whether due to practical constraints or deliberate design choices -- a fundamental trade-off…
How much work can be extracted from a heat bath using a thermal machine? The study of this question has a very long tradition in statistical physics in the weak-coupling limit, applied to macroscopic systems. However, the assumption that…
The minimal set of thermodynamic control parameters consists of a statistical (thermal) and a mechanical one. These suffice to introduce all the pertinent thermodynamic variables; thermodynamic processes can then be defined as paths on this…
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''.…
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 examine the relationship between the second law of thermodynamics and the energy eigenstates of quantum many-body systems that undergo cyclic unitary evolution. Using a numerically optimized control protocol, we analyze how the work…
The efficiency of macroscopic heat engines is restricted by the second law of thermodynamics. They can reach at most the efficiency of a Carnot engine. In contrast, heat currents in mesoscopic heat engines show fluctuations. Thus, there is…
In systems described by the scattering theory, there is an upper bound, lower than Carnot, on the efficiency of steady-state heat to work conversion at a given output power. We show that interacting systems can overcome such bound and…
Quantifying multipartite entanglement in quantum many-body systems and hybrid quantum computing architectures is a fundamental yet challenging task. In recent years, thermodynamic quantities such as the maximum extractable work from an…
A long standing open problem whether a heat engine with finite power achieves the Carnot efficiency is investigated. We rigorously prove a general trade-off inequality on thermodynamic efficiency and time interval of a cyclic process with…
Traditional quantum thermodynamic frameworks associate work to energy exchanges induced by unitary transformations generated by external controls, and heat to energy exchanges induced by bath interaction. Recently, a framework was…
Quantum systems strongly coupled to many-body systems equilibrate to the reduced state of a global thermal state, deviating from the local thermal state of the system as it occurs in the weak-coupling limit. Taking this insight as a…
This work focuses on the response to an external field of a Brownian particle submerged in an Ohmic quantum thermal bath. The field only affects the dynamics of the central particle without affecting the thermal reservoir. The thermodynamic…
In this review the debated rapport between thermodynamics and quantum mechanics is addressed in the framework of the theory of periodically-driven/controlled quantum-thermodynamic machines. The basic model studied here is that of a…
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.…