Related papers: Unconventional cycles, pseudoadiabatics and multip…
The exactly solvable model of a one dimensional isotropic XY spin chain is employed to study the thermodynamics of open systems. For this purpose the chain is subdivided into two parts, one part is considered as the system while the rest as…
Exceptional points, at which two or more eigenfunctions of a Hamiltonian coalesce, occur in non-Hermitian systems and lead to surprising physical effects. In particular, the behaviour of a system under parameter variation can differ…
Motivated by experiments with current biased superconducting atomic point contacts the general problem of nonadiabatic transitions between adiabatic surfaces in presence of strong dissipation is studied. For a single channel device the…
This article is a short version of a longer article to appear in Physics Reports (cond-mat/9708200). The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of…
The point defect thermodynamics in a general family of binary compounds, including B2 compounds as a specific representative, are classified by way of two non-trivial energy parameters. The scheme is applied to published ab initio defect…
We study the 1-d isotropic Heisenberg model of two spin-1/2 systems as a quantum heat engine. The engine undergoes a four-step Otto cycle where the two adiabatic branches involve changing the external magnetic field at a fixed value of the…
The minimal work principle states that work done on a thermally isolated equilibrium system is minimal for adiabatically slow (reversible) realization of a given process. This principle, one of the formulations of the second law, is studied…
We control the direction and magnitude of thermal radiation, between two bodies at equal temperature (in thermal equilibrium), by invoking the concept of adiabatic pumping. Specifically, within a resonant near-field electromagnetic heat…
We study the pattern of activated trajectories in a double well system without detailed balance, in the weak noise limit. The pattern may contain cusps and other singular features, which are similar to the caustics of geometrical optics.…
We consider an inhomogeneous quantum phase transition across a multicritical point of the XY quantum spin chain. This is an example of a Lifshitz transition with a dynamical exponent z = 2. Just like in the case z = 1 considered in New J.…
We review a series of experimental studies of the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium processes at the microscale. In particular, in these experiments we studied the fluctuations of the thermodynamic properties of a single optically-trapped…
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy production in macroscopic systems is non-negative, reaching zero only at thermodynamic equilibrium. As a corollary, this implies that the state trajectory of macroscopic systems is…
A universal scheme is introduced to speed up the dynamics of a driven open quantum system along a prescribed trajectory of interest. This framework generalizes counterdiabatic driving to open quantum processes. Shortcuts to adiabaticity…
The gap function in unconventional superconductors may vanish at points or lines in momentum space, permitting electronic excitations, termed nodal quasiparticles, to exist at temperatures well below the superconducting transition. In the…
We analyse non-equilibrium Carnot-like cycles built with a colloidal particle in a harmonic trap, which is immersed in a fluid that acts as a heat bath. Our analysis is carried out in the overdamped regime. The cycle comprises four…
Recent research on the thermodynamic arrow of time, at the microscopic scale, has questioned the universality of its direction. Theoretical studies showed that quantum correlations can be used to revert the natural heat flow (from the hot…
The steady states of two gases of hard spheres or disks separated by an adiabatic piston in presence of a temperature gradient are discussed. The temperature field is generated by two thermal walls at different temperatures, each of them in…
Unconventional superconductors are most frequently identified by the observation of power-law behaviour on low-temperature thermodynamic or transport properties, such as specific heat. Here we show that, in addition to the usual point and…
Crossing a quantum critical point in finite time challenges the adiabatic condition due to the closing of the energy gap, which ultimately results in the formation of excitations. Such non-adiabatic excitations are typically deemed…
In earlier work we presented a foundation for the Second Law of Classical Thermodynamics in terms of the Entropy Principle. More precisely, we provided an empirically accessible axiomatic derivation of an entropy function defined on all…