Related papers: Origin of Negative Temperatures in Systems Interac…
This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic…
We argue that the entanglement entropy for a very small subsystem obeys a property which is analogous to the first law of thermodynamics when we excite the system. In relativistic setups, its effective temperature is proportional to the…
The Carnot theory is unique among the theories of heat developed before the emergence of thermodynamics because it considers the relationship between heat and work. The theory is contained in Carnot's book published in 1824, which includes…
An interesting question to explore in physics classes is whether gravity violates the second law of thermodynamics. Standard physics textbooks provide little to no discussion of the relationship between entropy and gravity, and the same is…
In a recent companion paper, we observed that the rules of ordinary thermodynamics generally fail to respect thermal duality, a symmetry of string theory under which the physics at temperature T is related to the physics at the inverse…
Thermal energy agitates all matter and its competition with ordering tendencies is one of the most fundamental organizing principles in the physical world. Thus, it is natural to enquire if an effective temperature could result when…
Absolute temperature, the fundamental temperature scale in thermodynamics, is usually bound to be positive. Under special conditions, however, negative temperatures - where high-energy states are more occupied than low-energy states - are…
The classical thermodynamic laws fail to capture the behavior of systems with energy Hamiltonian which is an explicit function of the temperature. Such Hamiltonian arises, for example, in modeling information processing systems, like…
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…
The concept of negative temperature (T < 0) is unique to quantum physics and describes systems that are hotter than any positive temperature system. For decades negative temperatures have been shown in a number of spin systems, but…
A unification of thermodynamics and information theory is proposed. It is argued that similarly to the randomness due to collisions in thermal systems, the quenched randomness that exists in data files in informatics systems contributes to…
Microcanonical thermodynamics allows the application of statistical mechanics both to finite and even small systems and also to the largest, self-gravitating ones. However, one must reconsider the fundamental principles of statistical…
We consider the entropy production of a strongly coupled bipartite system. The total entropy production can be partitioned into various components, which we use to define local versions of the Second Law that are valid without the usual…
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…
We review the general aspects of the concept of temperature in equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Although temperature is an old and well-established notion, it still presents controversial facets. After a short…
We review two definitions of temperature in statistical mechanics, $T_B$ and $T_G$, corresponding to two possible definitions of entropy, $S_B$ and $S_G$, known as surface and volume entropy respectively. We restrict our attention to a…
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…
The relationships between reversible Carnot cycles, the absence of perpetual motion machines and the existence of a non-decreasing, globally unique entropy function forms the starting point of many textbook presentations of the foundations…
A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…
Steady nonequilibria dissipate energy and, when changing external parameters, an extra or excess heat accompanies the relaxation to the new nonequilibrium condition. For nonequilibrium systems in contact with a thermal bath, the heat…