Related papers: The problem of engines in statistical physics
The question about the existence of so-called ``hidden'' variables in quantum mechanics and the perception of the completeness of quantum mechanics are two sides of the same coin. Quantum analytical mechanics constitutes a completion of…
A classical particle system coupled with a thermostat driven by an external constant force reaches its steady state when the ensemble-averaged drift velocity does not vary with time. The statistical mechanics of such a system is derived…
We investigate heat engines whose working substance is made of two coupled qubits performing a generalised Otto cycle by varying their applied magnetic field or their interaction strength during the compression and expansion strokes. During…
On the assumption that experimentally validated tabulated thermodynamic properties of saturated fluids published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology are accurate, a theoretical thermodynamic cycle can be demonstrated that…
Brownian motors, i.e. devices able to produce useful work out of thermal forces with the help of other unbiased forces, provide an ideal benchmark for the investigation of quantum dissipative systems, for two reasons. First, the interaction…
Stochastic thermodynamics as reviewed here systematically provides a framework for extending the notions of classical thermodynamics like work, heat and entropy production to the level of individual trajectories of well-defined…
The autonomous heat engine is a model system of autonomous nonequilibrium systems like biological cells, exploiting nonequilibrium flow for operations. As the Carnot engine has essentially contributed to the equilibrium thermodynamics,…
The excess work required to drive a stochastic system out of thermodynamic equilibrium through a time-dependent external perturbation is directly related to the amount of entropy produced during the driving process, allowing excess work and…
Brownian particles interacting sequentially with distinct temperatures and driving forces at each stroke have been tackled as a reliable alternative for the construction of engine setups. However they can behave very inefficiently depending…
Quantifying the flow of energy within and through fluctuating nanoscale systems poses a significant challenge to understanding microscopic biological machines. A common approach involves coarse-graining, which allows a simplified…
I give a highly selective overview of the way statistical mechanics explains the microscopic origins of the time asymmetric evolution of macroscopic systems towards equilibrium and of first order phase transitions in equilibrium. These…
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics of a system situated in a sustained environment with influx and efflux is usually treated as a subsystem in a larger, closed "universe". It remains a question what the minimally required description for the…
A quantum-mechanical analog of the Carnot engine reversibly working at vanishing temperature, shortly termed the quantum-mechanical Carnot engine, is discussed. A general formula for the efficiency of such an engine with an arbitrary…
In the so-called "microscopic" models of vehicular traffic, attention is paid explicitly to each individual vehicle each of which is represented by a "particle"; the nature of the "interactions" among these particles is determined by the…
Based on Newton's laws reformulated in the Hamiltonian dynamics combined with statistical mechanics, we formulate a statistical mechanical theory supporting the hypothesis of a closed oscillating universe. We find that the behaviour of the…
We study the entanglement and work statistics in a driven two-qubit system. The regulation of periodic driving has much more versatility and universality in contrast to reservoir engineering in static systems. We found the quasi-steady…
The thermodynamic properties of quantum heat engines are stochastic owing to the presence of thermal and quantum fluctuations. We here experimentally investigate the efficiency and nonequilibrium entropy production statistics of a spin-1/2…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
Understanding and simulating how a quantum system interacts and exchanges information or energy with its surroundings is a ubiquitous problem, one which must be carefully addressed in order to establish a coherent framework to describe the…
Passivity is a fundamental concept in thermodynamics that demands a quantum system's energy cannot be lowered by any reversible, unitary process acting on the system. In the limit of many such systems, passivity leads in turn to the concept…