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The second law of thermodynamics posits that in closed macroscopic systems the rate of entropy production must be positive. However, small systems can exhibit negative entropy production over short timescales, seemingly in contradiction…
The thermodynamic uncertainty relation, which establishes a universal trade-off between nonequilibrium current fluctuations and dissipation, has been found for various Markovian systems. However, this relation has not been revealed for…
The second law of thermodynamics states that a system in contact with a heat bath can undergo a transformation if and only if its free energy decreases. However, the "if" part of this statement is only true when the effective heat bath is…
The emergence of statistical mechanics from quantum dynamics is a central problem in quantum many-body physics. Deriving observables aligned with the prediction of the canonical ensemble for a quantum system relies on the presence of a bath…
The reversibility and recurrence paradoxes are key issues that have been left unsolved in researches on the foundation of thermodynamics since the 19th century. This article shows that (1) the reversibility paradox can be overcome if we pay…
Starting at the mesoscopic level with a general formulation of stochastic thermodynamics in terms of Markov jump processes, we identify the scaling conditions that ensure the emergence of a (typically nonlinear) deterministic dynamics and…
We attempt to characterize irreversibility of a dynamical system from the existence of different forward and backward mathematical representations depending on the direction of the time arrow. Such different representations have been…
It is generally admitted in thermodynamics that, for a given change in volume, the work done by a system is greater in conditions of reversibility than in conditions of irreversibility. If the basic conventions of physics are strictly…
We introduce the idea of weakly coherent collisional models, where the elements of an environment interacting with a system of interest are prepared in states that are approximately thermal, but have an amount of coherence proportional to a…
We study two small quantum systems coupled to the same reservoir which is in thermal equilibrium. By studying the particle density and the energy density in the two systems before and after they contact each other, we find that the two…
The proof of the long-standing conjecture is presented that Markovian quantum master equations are at odds with quantum thermodynamics under conventional assumptions of fluctuation-dissipation theorems (implying a translation invariant…
Small thermodynamic systems exhibit peculiar behavior different from that observed in long-scale systems. Non-equilibrium processes taking place in those systems are strongly influenced by the presence of fluctuations which can be large.…
Understanding under what conditions it is possible to construct equivalent ensembles is key to advancing our ability to connect microscopic and macroscopic properties of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. In the case of fluid dynamical…
Thermodynamic uncertainty relations have emerged as universal bounds on current fluctuations in non-equilibrium systems. Here we derive a new bound for a particular class of run-and-tumble type processes using the mathematical framework of…
The energy conversion efficiency of far-from-equilibrium systems is generally limited by irreversible thermodynamic fluxes that make contact with different heat baths. For complex systems, the states of the maximum efficiency and the…
The correspondence principle is investigated in the framework of deterministic predictions for individual systems. Exact analytical results are obtained for the quantum and the Liouvillian dynamics of a nonlinear oscillator coupled to a…
This article aims at revisiting, with the aid of simple and neat numerical examples, some of the basic features of macroscopic irreversibility, and, thus, of the mechanical foundation of the second principle of thermodynamics as drawn by…
The issue of irreversibility in a universe with time-reversal-symmetric laws is a central problem in physics. % , and, in particular, to statistical mechanics, information theory and quantum thermodynamics. In this letter, we discuss for…
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 emergence of irreversibility in physical processes, despite the fundamentally reversible nature of quantum mechanics, remains an open question in physics. This thesis explores the intricate relationship between quantum mechanics and…