Related papers: Experimental realization of Feynman's ratchet
We argue that thermal machines can be understood from the perspective of `virtual qubits' at `virtual temperatures': The relevant way to view the two heat baths which drive a thermal machine is as a composite system. Virtual qubits are…
A stopping time $T$ is the first time when a trajectory of a stochastic process satisfies a specific criterion. In this paper, we use martingale theory to derive the integral fluctuation relation $\langle e^{-S_{\rm tot}(T)}\rangle=1$ for…
Abstract Reservoir engineering is an important tool for quantum information science and quantum thermodynamics since it allows for preparing and/or protecting special quantum states of single or multipartite systems or to investigate…
From synthetic active devices such as self-propelling Janus colloids to micro-organisms like bacteria, micro-algae, living cells in tissues, active fluctuations are ubiquitous. Thermodynamics of small systems involving thermal as well as…
Fluctuation-dissipation relation ensures thermodynamic equilibrium of a particle immersed in a heat bath. We will show that, under certain circumstances, the fluctuation-dissipation relation fails to ensure equilibrium between the immersed…
We summarize and extend some of the results obtained recently for the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of a pinned harmonic chain, with random velocity flips at Poissonian times, acted on by a periodic force {at one end} and in contact…
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…
At the very foundation of the second law of thermodynamics lies the fact that no heat engine operating between two reservoires of temperatures $T_C\leq T_H$ can overperform the ideal Carnot engine: $\langle W \rangle / \langle Q_H \rangle…
We carefully examine the thermodynamic consequences of the repeated partial projection model for coupling a quantum system to an arbitrary series of environments under feedback control. This paper provides observational definitions of heat…
A microscopic understanding of the thermodynamic entropy in quantum systems has been a mystery ever since the invention of quantum mechanics. In classical physics, this entropy is believed to be the logarithm of the volume of phase space…
The transport of interacting Brownian particles in a periodic asymmetric (ratchet) substrate is studied numerically. In a zero-temperature regime, the system behaves as a reversible step motor, undergoing multiple sign reversals of the…
We study an Otto heat machine whose working substance is a single two-level system interacting with a cold thermal reservoir and with a squeezed hot thermal reservoir. By adjusting the squeezing or the adiabaticity parameter (the…
We consider a minimal model of a quantum rotator composed of a single particle confined in an harmonic potential and driven by two temperature-biased heat reservoirs. In the case the particle potential is rendered asymmetric and rotated an…
Two aspects of conductive heat are focused here (i) the nature of conductive heat, defined as that form of energy that is transferred as a result of a temperature difference and (ii) the nature of the intermolecular potentials that induces…
For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…
We present a methodology to simulate the quantum thermodynamics of thermal machines which are built from an interacting working medium in contact with fermionic reservoirs at fixed temperature and chemical potential. Our method works at…
A central building block of a heat engine is the working fluid, which mediates the conversion of heat into work. In nanoscale heat engines, the working fluid can be a quantum system whose behavior and dynamics are non-classical. A…
We consider the temperature fluctuations of a small object. Classical fluctuations of the temperature have been considered for a long time. Using the Nyquist approach, we show that the temperature of an object fluctuates when in a thermal…
By numerically exact calculations of spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg models on small clusters, we demonstrate that quantum entanglement between subsystems $A$ and $B$ in a pure ground state of a whole system $A+B$ can induce thermal…
A tunable and balanced heat interferometer is proposed and analyzed. The device consists of two superconductors linked together to form a double-loop interrupted by three Josephson junctions coupled in parallel. Both superconductors are…