Related papers: Work needed to drive a thermodynamic system betwee…
We introduce an alternative route for obtaining reliable cyclic engines, based on interacting Brownian particles under time-periodic drivings. General expressions for the thermodynamic fluxes, such as power and heat, are obtained using the…
We show that coupled two level systems like qubits studied in quantum information can be used as a thermodynamic machine. At least three qubits or spins are necessary and arranged in a chain. The system is interfaced between two split baths…
If the second law of thermodynamics forbids a transition from one state to another, then it is still possible to make the transition happen by using a sufficient amount of work. But if we do not have access to this amount of work, can the…
The second law of thermodynamics uses change in free energy of macroscopic systems to set a bound on performed work. Ergotropy plays a similar role in microscopic scenarios, and is defined as the maximum amount of energy that can be…
A basic task of information processing is information transfer (flow). Here we study a pair of Brownian particles each coupled to a thermal bath at temperature $T_1$ and $T_2$, respectively. The information flow in such a system is defined…
We establish a stochastic thermodynamics for a Fermionic level driven by a time-dependent force and interacting with initially thermalized levels playing the role of a reservoir. The driving induces consecutive avoided crossings between…
Thermodynamics of quantum systems out-of-equilibrium is very important for the progress of quantum technologies, however, the effects of many body interactions and their interplay with temperature, different drives and dynamical regimes is…
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…
Collective effects have attracted remarkable recent interest, not only for their presence in several systems in nature but also for the possibility of being used for the construction of efficient engine setups. Notwithstanding, little is…
It is well-known in thermodynamics that the creation of correlations costs work. It seems then a truism that if a thermodynamic transformation A->B is impossible, so will be any transformation that in sending A to B also correlates among…
A central goal of thermodynamics is to identify optimal processes during which the least amount of energy is dissipated into the environment. Generally, even for simple systems, such as the parametric harmonic oscillator, optimal control…
Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…
Thermodynamics is traditionally concerned with systems comprised of a large number of particles. Here we present a framework for extending thermodynamics to individual quantum systems, including explicitly a thermal bath and work-storage…
Optimal (reversible) processes in thermodynamics can be modelled as step-by-step processes, where the system is successively thermalized with respect to different Hamiltonians by an external thermal bath. However, in practice interactions…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
The sum of the average work dissipated plus the information gained during a thermodynamic process with discrete feedback must exceed zero. We demonstrate that the minimum value of zero is attained only by feedback-reversible processes that…
The experimental time scale dependence of thermodynamic relations in out-of-equilibrium systems with aging phenomena is investigated theoretically by using only aging properties of the two-time correlation functions and the generalized…
The development of efficient artificial nanodevices poses challenges which are of fundamental and technological nature. Recent progress has been made in the context of finite-time thermodynamics. A central question in finite-time…
Considering an entropy-based division of energy transferred into heat and work, we develop an alternative theoretical framework for the thermodynamic analysis of two-level systems. When comparing these results with those obtained under the…
Physical systems that power motion and create structure in a fixed amount of time dissipate energy and produce entropy. Whether living or synthetic, systems performing these dynamic functions must balance dissipation and speed. Here, we…