Related papers: Second law of thermodynamics with quantum memory
The thermodynamics of quantum systems coupled to periodically modulated heat baths and work reservoirs is developed. By identifying affinities and fluxes, the first and second law are formulated consistently. In the linear response regime,…
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…
Heat is a physical manifestation of entropy, where the removal of entropy from a thermal energy reservoir permits the conversion of heat into work. This entropy transfer is facilitated by the cold thermal energy reservoir in typical heat…
With a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems undergoing, respectively, quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths at different stages of a cycle, we are able to clarify some…
From an entropy-based formulation of the first law of thermodynamics in the quantum regime, we investigate the performance of Otto-like and Carnot-like engines for a single-qubit working medium. Within this framework, the first law includes…
Work extraction from a heat engine in a cycle by a quantum mechanical device (quantum "piston") is analyzed. The standard definition of work fails in the quantum domain. The correct extractable work and its efficiency bound are shown to…
We study a quantum thermal engine model for which the heat transfer law is determined by Einstein's theory of radiation. The working substance of the quantum engine is assumed to be a two-level quantum systems of which the constituent…
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…
We show that the second law of thermodynamics poses a restriction on how well we can discriminate between quantum states. By examining an ideal gas with a quantum internal degree of freedom undergoing a cycle based on a proposal by Asher…
From thermodynamics point of view, in this era of aiming at energy conservation and sustainability, we need to develop more accurate ways to design thermal power, cooling and heat pump cycles. It has been the general practice 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,…
Many fruitful analogies have emerged between the theories of quantum entanglement and thermodynamics, motivating the pursuit of an axiomatic description of entanglement akin to the laws of thermodynamics. A long-standing open problem has…
It is often claimed, that from a quantum system of d levels, and entropy S and heat bath of temperature T one can draw kT(ln d -S) amount of work. However, the usual arguments based on Szilard engine are not fully rigorous. Here we prove…
The first law of thermodynamics, which governs energy conservation, is traditionally formulated as an equality. Surprisingly, we demonstrate that the first law alone implies a universal Landauer-like inequality linking changes in system…
Established heat engines in quantum regime can be modeled with various quantum systems as working substances. For example, in the non-relativistic case, we can model the heat engine using infinite potential well as a working substance to…
The second law of thermodynamics prohibits spontaneous heat from a cold to a hot body. However, it has been theoretically and experimentally shown that energy can flow from a cold to a hot body if the bodies are initially correlated. We…
Quantum dynamics controlled by a time-dependent coupling constant are studied. It is proven that an energy eigenstate expectation value of work done by the system in a quench process cannot exceed the work in the corresponding quasi-static…
One of the fundamental questions in quantum thermodynamics concerns the decomposition of energetic changes into heat and work. Contrary to classical engines, the entropy change of the piston cannot be neglected in the quantum domain. As a…
We generalize stochastic thermodynamics to include information reservoirs. Such information reservoirs, which can be modeled as a sequence of bits, modify the second law. For example, work extraction from a system in contact with a single…
The thermodynamic properties of quantum heat engines are stochastic owing to the presence of thermal and quantum fluctuations. We here experimentally investigate the efficiency and nonequilibrium entropy production statistics of a spin-1/2…