Related papers: Second law of thermodynamics with quantum memory
A new thermodynamic inequality is derived which leads to the maximum work that can be extracted from multi-heat baths with the assistance of discrete quantum feedback control. The maximum work is determined by the free-energy difference and…
We propose a new form of the Second Law inequality that defines a tight bound for extractable work from the non-equilibrium quantum state. In classical thermodynamics, the optimal work is given by the difference of free energy, what…
According to the second law, the efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound that is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the total entropy does not…
The Carnot statement of the second law of thermodynamics poses an upper limit on the efficiency of all heat engines. Recently, it has been studied whether generic quantum features such as coherence and quantum entanglement could allow for…
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…
We study the modification of the second law of thermodynamics for a quantum system interacting with a reservoir regarding quantum coherence. The whole system is isolated so that neither energy nor information is lost. It is discovered that…
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…
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…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
A heat engine undergoes a cyclic operation while in equilibrium with the net result of conversion of heat into work. Quantum effects such as superposition of states can improve an engine's efficiency by breaking detailed balance, but this…
The efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound. This bound follows from the second law of thermodynamics and is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the…
We consider the Non-Equilibrium Steady State induced by two infinite quantum thermal reservoirs at different temperatures and derive an inequality giving the upper bound of the work extracted by cyclic operations. This upper bound tends to…
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…
Thermodynamic behaviors in a quantum Brownian motion coupled to a classical heat bath is studied. We then define a heat operator by generalizing the stochastic energetics and show the energy balance (first law) and the upper bound of the…
We quantify the prior information to infer the optimal characteristics for a constrained thermodynamic process of maximum work extraction for a pair of non-identical finite systems. The total entropy of the whole system remains conserved.…
Recent studies have investigated the role of entanglement in the operation of a two-qubit system as a heat engine, showing that work can be extracted from a single heat bath without direct heat dissipation between the two-qubit system and…
We analyze the efficiency of thermal engines (either quantum or classical) working with a single heat reservoir like atmosphere. The engine first gets an energy intake, which can be done in arbitrary non-equilibrium way e.g. combustion of…
We consider quantum heat engines that operate between nonequilibrium stationary reservoirs. We evaluate their maximum efficiency from the positivity of the entropy production and show that it can be expressed in terms of an effective…
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.…
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,…