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Related papers: Szilard Engines as Quantum Thermodynamical Systems

200 papers

The key question of this paper is whether work can be extracted from a heat engine by using purely quantum mechanical information. If the answer is yes, what is its mathematical formula? First, by using a bipartite memory we show that the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-15 Jung Jun Park , Kang-Hwan Kim , Takahiro Sagawa , Sang Wook Kim

The Szilard engine (SZE) is the quintessence of Maxwell's demon, which can extract the work from a heat bath by utilizing information. We present the first complete quantum analysis of the SZE, and derive an analytic expression of the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2011-02-23 Sang Wook Kim , Takahiro Sagawa , Simone De Liberato , Masahito Ueda

Erasure is fundamental for information processing. It is also key in connecting information theory and thermodynamics, as it is a logically irreversible task. We provide a new angle on this connection, noting that there may be an additional…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-11-30 Maria Violaris , Chiara Marletto

The laws of thermodynamics put limits to the efficiencies of thermal machines. Analogues of these laws are now established for quantum engines weakly and passively coupled to the environment providing a framework to find improvements to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-10-23 Felipe Barra

In Szilard's engine, measurement and feedback allows to extract work from an equilibrium environment, a process otherwise forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics. Recent theoretical developments have established fluctuation theorems and…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2025-11-14 David Barker , Sebastian Lehmann , Kimberly A. Dick , Peter Samuelsson , Ville Maisi , Patrick P. Potts

By considering level shifting during the insertion process we revisit the quantum Szilard engine (QSZE) with fully quantum consideration. We derive the general expressions of the heat absorbed from thermal bath and the total work done to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-11 Hai Li , Jian Zou , Jun-Gang Li , Bin Shao , Lian-Ao Wu

We propose a setup based on two coupled quantum dots where thermodynamics of a measurement can be quantitatively characterized. The information obtained in the measurement can be utilized by performing feedback in a manner apparently…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-04-06 Aki Kutvonen , Takahiro Sagawa , Tapio Ala-Nissilä

We study the quantum mechanical generalization of force or pressure, and then we extend the classical thermodynamic isobaric process to quantum mechanical systems. Based on these efforts, we are able to study the quantum version of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-04-22 H. T. Quan

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-06-19 John P. S. Peterson , Roberto S. Sarthour , Raymond Laflamme

One of the outstanding challenges to information processing is the eloquent suppression of energy consumption in execution of logic operations. Landauer principle sets an energy constraint in deletion of a classical bit of information.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-06-13 L. L. Yan , T. P. Xiong , K. Rehan , F. Zhou , D. F. Liang , L. Chen , J. Q. Zhang , W. L. Yang , Z. H. Ma , M. Feng

A Szilard Engine is a hypothetical device which is able to extract work from a single thermal reservoir by measuring the position of particles within the engine. We derive the amount of work that can be extracted from such a device in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-05-23 Martin Plesch , Oscar Dahlsten , John Goold , Vlatko Vedral

The quantum Szilard engine (QSZE) is a conceptual quantum engine for understanding the fundamental physics of quantum thermodynamics and information physics. We generalize the QSZE to an arbitrary spin case, i.e., a spin QSZE (SQSZE), and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-02-03 Zekun Zhuang , Shi-Dong Liang

We address the question of verifying the quantumness of thermal machines. A Szil\'ard engine is truly quantum if its work output cannot be described by a local hidden state (LHS) model, i. e. an objective local statistical ensemble.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-12-25 Konstantin Beyer , Kimmo Luoma , Walter T. Strunz

We present a critical examination of the difficulties with the quantum versions of a lifted weight that are widely used as work storage systems in quantum thermodynamics. To overcome those difficulties, we turn to the strong connections…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-06-05 Shang-Yung Wang

Landauer's principle sets a fundamental limit on the heat dissipated when one classical bit of information is erased from a memory, thereby establishing a direct link between information theory and thermodynamics. With the advent of quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-05-14 Carlos Octavio A. Ribeiro Neto , Bertúlio de Lima Bernardo

Following the rising interest in quantum information science, the extension of a heat engine to the quantum regime by exploring microscopic quantum systems has seen a boom of interest in the last decade. Although quantum coherence in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-03-14 Wentao Ji , Zihua Chai , Mengqi Wang , Yuhang Guo , Xing Rong , Fazhan Shi , Changliang Ren , Ya Wang , Jiangfeng Du

Thermodynamics connects our knowledge of the world to our capability to manipulate and thus to control it. This crucial role of control is exemplified by the third law of thermodynamics, Nernst's unattainability principle, which states that…

Following recent work by Marathe and Parrondo [PRL, 104, 245704 (2010)], we construct a classical Hamiltonian system whose energy is reduced during the adiabatic cycling of external parameters, when initial conditions are sampled…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-05-28 Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan , Christopher Jarzynski

Recent studies have developed fundamental limitations on nanoscale thermodynamics, in terms of a set of independent free energy relations. Here we show that free energy relations cannot properly describe quantum coherence in thermodynamic…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-03-18 Matteo Lostaglio , David Jennings , Terry Rudolph

Maxwell's Demon, 'a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course', has been the centre of much debate about its abilities to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Landauer's hypothesis, that the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-11-06 Samson Abramsky , Dominic Horsman