Related papers: Asymptotic Reversibility of Thermal Operations for…
The resource theory of thermal operations, an established model for small-scale thermodynamics, provides an extension of equilibrium thermodynamics to nonequilibrium situations. On a lattice of any dimension with any translation-invariant…
The class of possible thermodynamic conversions can be extended by introducing an auxiliary system called catalyst, which assists state conversion while remaining its own state unchanged. We reveal a complete characterization of catalytic…
We consider a quantum system S interacting sequentially with independent systems E_m, m=1,2,... Before interacting, each E_m is in a possibly random state, and each interaction is characterized by an interaction time and an interaction…
Thermodynamics plays an important role both in the foundations of physics and in technological applications. An operational perspective adopted in recent years is to formulate it as a quantum resource theory. At the core of this theory is…
Interactions of quantum systems with their environment play a crucial role in resource-theoretic approaches to thermodynamics in the microscopic regime. Here, we analyze the possible state transitions in the presence of "small" heat baths…
The second law of thermodynamics is the cornerstone of physics, characterizing the convertibility between thermodynamic states through a single function, entropy. Given the universal applicability of thermodynamics, a fundamental question…
Small spin systems at the interface between analytical studies and experimental application have been intensively studied in recent decades. The spin ring consisting of four spins with uniform antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interaction is an…
It is a central question in quantum thermodynamics to determine how irreversible is a process that transforms an initial state $\rho$ to a final state $\sigma$, and whether such irreversibility can be thought of as a useful resource. For…
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…
We establish that entropy production, which is crucial to the characterization of thermodynamic irreversibility, is obtained through a variational principle involving the Kulback-Leibler divergence. A simple application of this…
We find necessary and sufficient conditions to determine the inter-convertibility of quantum systems under time-translation covariant evolution, and use it to solve several problems in quantum thermodynamics both in the single-shot and…
It has previously been suggested that small subsystems of closed quantum systems thermalize under some assumptions; however, this has been rigorously shown so far only for systems with very weak interaction between subsystems. In this work,…
In recent years it was recognized that properties of physical systems such as entanglement, athermality, and asymmetry, can be viewed as resources for important tasks in quantum information, thermodynamics, and other areas of physics. This…
A quantum engine fueled by quantum measurement is proposed. Under the finite-time adiabatic driving regime, the conversion of heat to work is realized without the compression and expansion of the resonance frequency. The work output,…
We consider thermal relaxation process of a quantum system attached to a single or multiple reservoirs. Quantifying the degree of irreversibility by entropy production, we prove that the irreversibility of the thermal relaxation is…
Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…
Quantum thermalization describes how closed quantum systems can effectively reach thermal equilibrium, resolving the apparent incongruity between the reversibility of Schr\"odinger's equation and the second law of thermodynamics. Despite…
Toward the formulation of the operational approach to quantum thermodynamics, the heat-up operator is explicitly constructed. This quantum operation generates for a generic system an irreversible transformation from a pure ground state at…
Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…
We present a generalization of quantum Stein's Lemma to the situation in which the alternative hypothesis is formed by a family of states, which can moreover be non-i.i.d.. We consider sets of states which satisfy a few natural properties,…