Related papers: Catalytic transformations with finite-size environ…
The second law of thermodynamics tells us which state transformations are so statistically unlikely that they are effectively forbidden. Its original formulation, due to Clausius, states that "Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer…
The usual paradigm of open quantum systems falls short when the environment is actually coupled to additional fields or components that drive it out of equilibrium. Here we explore the simplest such scenario, by considering a two level…
Feedback cooling plays a critical role in stabilizing quantum systems and achieving low temperatures, where a key question is to determine the fundamental thermodynamic limits on cooling performance. We establish a fundamental bound on…
We consider an open quantum system of N not directly interacting spins (qubits) in contact with both local and collective thermal environments. The qubit-environment interactions are energy conserving. We trace out the variables of the…
The cooling effects of a quantum LC circuit coupled inductively with an ensemble of artificial qubits are investigated. The particles may decay independently or collectively through their interaction with the environmental vacuum…
We study, from a thermodynamic perspective, the equilibrium states of a qubit interacting with an arbitrary environment of dimension N>>2. We show that even in presence of memory about the initial state, in some cases the qubit can be…
We study the problem of dynamic cooling whereby a target qubit is cooled at the expense of heating up $N-1$ further identical qubits, by means of a global unitary operation. A standard back-of-the-envelope high temperature estimate…
We investigate the limitations that emerge in thermodynamic tasks as a result of having local control only over the components of a thermal machine. These limitations are particularly relevant for devices composed of interacting many-body…
We have found that for a wide range of two-qubit Hamiltonians the canonical-ensemble thermal state is entangled in two distinct temperature regions. In most cases the ground state is entangled; however we have also found an example where…
We examine a quantum absorption refrigerator that comprises three qubits, each of which is connected with a separate spin-star environment. The refrigerator exhibits the feature of transient cooling, i.e., lowering of the temperature of the…
A fundamental challenge in quantum thermodynamics is the exploration of inherent dimensional constraints in thermodynamic machines. In the context of two-level systems, the most compact refrigerator necessitates the involvement of three…
We study the transition probabilities of a two-point measurement on a quantum system, initially prepared in a thermal state. We find two independent constraints on the difference between transition probabilities when the system is prepared…
While the ability to measure low temperatures accurately in quantum systems is important in a wide range of experiments, the possibilities and the fundamental limits of quantum thermometry are not yet fully understood theoretically. Here we…
The long-time dynamics of quantum systems, typically, but not always, results in a thermal steady state. The microscopic processes that lead to or circumvent this fate are of interest, since everyday experience tells us that not all spatial…
A quantum system and a thermal bath can reach thermal equilibrium through an interaction, whereupon the system acquires the same temperature as the bath. But how does a delocalised quantum system thermalise with a bath whose local…
We investigate the operation of a qubit as a quantum thermal device within the repeated interaction framework, allowing for strong system-bath coupling and finite interaction times. We analyze two minimal models: an alternating-coupling…
We design a quantum thermal device that can simultaneously and dynamically cool multiple target qubits. Using a setup with three bosonic heat baths, we propose an engineering of interaction Hamiltonian using operators on different subspaces…
We investigate the loss of adiabaticity when cooling a many-body quantum system from an initial thermal state toward a quantum critical point. The excitation density, which quantifies the degree of adiabaticity of the dynamics, is found to…
We study the dynamics of two interacting two-level systems (qubits) having one of them isolated and the other coupled to a single mode electromagnetic field in a thermal state. The field plays the role of a small environment, in contrast to…
Quantum cooling, a deterministic process that drives any state to the lowest eigenstate, has been widely used from studying ground state properties of chemistry and condensed matter quantum physics, to general optimization problems.…