Related papers: The second law and beyond in microscopic quantum s…
The second law of classical thermodynamics, based on the positivity of the entropy production, only holds for deterministic processes. Therefore the Second Law in stochastic quantum thermodynamics may not hold. By making a fundamental…
The Brownian motion of a quantum particle in a harmonic confining potential and coupled to a harmonic quantum thermal bath is exactly solvable. It is shown that at low enough temperatures the stationary state is non-Gibbsian due to an…
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…
The status of heat and work in nonequilibrium thermodynamics is quite confusing and non-unique at present with conflicting interpretations even after a long history of the first law in terms of exchange heat and work, and is far from…
The laws of thermodynamics are a cornerstone of physics. At the nanoscale, where fluctuations and quantum effects matter, there is no unique thermodynamic framework because thermodynamic quantities such as heat and work depend on the…
We review the fundamental properties of the quantum relative entropy for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In particular, we focus on several inequalities that are related to the second law of thermodynamics, where the positivity and the…
Understanding how to assign internal energy, heat, and work in quantum systems beyond weak coupling remains a central problem in quantum thermodynamics, particularly as the difference between competing definitions becomes increasingly…
The principle of microscopic reversibility lies at the core of fluctuation theorems, which have extended our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics to the statistical level. In the quantum regime, however, this elementary…
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system is non-decreasing. Discussing the Second Law in the quantum world poses new challenges and provides new opportunities, involving fundamental…
Quantum thermodynamics aims at extending standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to systems with sizes well below the thermodynamic limit. A rapidly evolving research field, which promises to change our understanding…
The purpose of this work is to discuss recent progress in deriving the fundamental laws of thermodynamics (0th, 1st and 2nd-law) from nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. Basic thermodynamic notions are clarified and different…
The third law of thermodynamics, also known as the Nernst unattainability principle, puts a fundamental bound on how close a system, whether classical or quantum, can be cooled to a temperature near to absolute zero. On the other hand, a…
A recently proposed quantum mechanical criterion `concavity of energy' for the second law of thermodynamics is studied also for classical particle systems confined in a bounded region by a potential with a time-dependent coupling constant.…
Second law of thermodynamics can be apparently violated for systems whose dynamics depends on acquired information by measurement. However, when one consider measurement and erasure process together along with the system it saves the second…
In one of its versions, the Second Law states: "It is impossible to construct an engine which will work in a complete cycle, and produces no effect except the raising of a weight and cooling of a heat reservoir." While the Second Law is…
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 study the energy exchange between two bosonic systems that interact via bilinear transformations in the mode operators. The first mode is considered as the thermodynamic system, while the second is regarded as the bath. This work finds…
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…
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,…
After Helmholtz, the mechanical foundation of thermodynamics included the First Law $d E = \delta Q + \delta W$, and the first part of the Clausius heat theorem $\delta Q^\text{rev}/T = dS$. The resulting invariance of the entropy $S$ for…