Related papers: Steering heat engines: a truly quantum Maxwell dem…
In order to describe quantum heat engines, here we systematically study isothermal and isochoric processes for quantum thermodynamic cycles. Based on these results the quantum versions of both the Carnot heat engine and the Otto heat engine…
The essence of both classical and quantum engines is to extract useful energy (work) from stochastic energy sources, e.g. thermal baths. In Maxwell's demon engines, work extraction is assisted by a feedback control based on measurements…
With a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems undergoing, respectively, quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths at different stages of a cycle, we are able to clarify some…
Quantum heat engines (QHE) are thermal machines where the working substance is quantum. In the extreme case the working medium can be a single particle or a few level quantum system. The study of QHE has shown a remarkable similarity with…
We propose a new way of looking at the quantum Maxwell's demon problem in terms of conditional action. A "conditional action" on a system is a unitary time evolution, selected according to the result of a previous measurement, which can…
In the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is a macroscopic physical law that states that in any isolated system, entropy can only increase and order, or organization, can only decrease. This means that in the long run, energy will always…
Information engines model ``Maxwell's demon" mechanistically. However, the demon's strategy is pre-described by an external experimenter, and information engines are conveniently designed such that observables contain complete information…
For an understanding of a heat engine working in the microscopic scale, it is often necessary to estimate the amount of reversible work extracted by isothermal expansion of the quantum gas used as its working substance. We consider an…
We implement a Szilard engine using a 2-bit logical unit consisting of inductively coupled quantum flux parametrons (QFPs) -- Josephson-junction superconducting circuits with applications in both the classical and quantum information…
Szilard's now-famous single-molecule engine was only the first of three constructions he introduced in 1929 to resolve several paradoxes arising from Maxwell's demon. We analyze Szilard's remaining two demon models. We show that the second…
In this work, we introduce the concept of the fractional quantum heat engine. We examine the space-fractional quantum Szilard heat engine as an example to show that the space-fractional quantum heat engines can produce higher efficiency…
In apparent contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon is able to cyclically extract work from a system in contact with a thermal bath exploiting the information about its microstate. The resolution of this paradox…
Quantum thermodynamics studies quantum effects in thermal machines. But when is a heat engine, which cyclically interacts with external reservoirs that unavoidably destroy its quantum coherence, really quantum? We here use the Leggett-Garg…
Here, we show the implementation of a complete cycle of a quantum engine fuelled by information. This engine is a quantum version of the Szilard engine, where information is used to extract heat from the environment and fully convert it…
Subsystems of a composite system in a pure state generally exist in mixed states and undergo changes with the overall state. This phenomenon arises from the coherence of the entire system and represents a crucial distinction between quantum…
We propose and analyze a quantum version of Szilard's ``one-molecule engine.'' In particular, we recover, in the quantum context, Szilard's conclusion concerning the free energy ``cost'' of measurements: $\Delta F \geq k_B T\ln2$ per bit of…
While most of the existing quantum information engines assisted by Maxwell's demon harness thermal fluctuations, those that rectify only quantum fluctuations have recently been constructed. We propose an alternative type of quantum…
Resolution of the century-long paradox on Maxwell's demon reveals a deep connection between information theory and thermodynamics. Although initially introduced as a thought experiment, Maxwell's demon can now be implemented in several…
The long-standing paradigm of Maxwell's demon is till nowadays a frequently investigated issue, which still provides interesting insights into basic physical questions. Considering a single-electron transistor, where we implement a Maxwell…
We discuss a self-contained spin-boson model for a measurement-driven engine, in which a demon generates work from thermal excitations of a quantum spin via measurement and feedback control. Instead of granting it full direct access to the…