Related papers: Open-system approach to nonequilibrium quantum the…
An intriguing phenomenon in non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics is the asymmetry of thermal processes. Relaxation to thermal equilibrium is the most important dissipative process, being a key concept for the design of heat engines and…
The variational method is very important in mathematical and theoretical physics because it allows us to describe the natural systems by physical quantities independently from the frame of reference used. A global and statistical approach…
Thermodynamic relations are derived from first principles of mechanics for non-equilibrium processes. Since the key role herein is played by the law of increase of entropy, the latter is analyzed at first. It is shown that its derivation…
We reveal several distinct regimes of the relaxation dynamics of a small quantum system coupled to an environment within the plane of the dissipation strength and the reservoir temperature. This is achieved by discriminating between…
We argue that the entanglement entropy for a very small subsystem obeys a property which is analogous to the first law of thermodynamics when we excite the system. In relativistic setups, its effective temperature is proportional to the…
We consider the problem of finding the energy minimum of a complex quantum Hamiltonian by employing a non-Markovian bath prepared in a low energy state. The energy minimization problem is thus turned into a thermodynamic cooling protocol in…
We suggest a new approach for describing quantum dissipation in a small systems for which the system-plus-reservoir approach is not relevant. We first analyze the fact that equilibrium thermodynamics may reveal the existence of an…
A key concept in quantum thermodynamics is extractable work, which specifies the maximum amount of work that can be extracted from a quantum system. Different quantities are used to measure extractable work, the most prevalent of which are…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
The standard dynamical approach to quantum thermodynamics is based on Markovian master equations describing the thermalization of a system weakly coupled to a large environment, and on tools such as entropy production relations. Here we…
We propose a new form of the Second Law inequality that defines a tight bound for extractable work from the non-equilibrium quantum state. In classical thermodynamics, the optimal work is given by the difference of free energy, what…
The minimal-coupling quantum heat engine is a thermal machine consisting of an explicit energy storage system, heat baths, and a working body, which alternatively couples to subsystems through discrete strokes -- energy-conserving two-body…
In the previous paper [C. W. Kim and I. Franco, J. Chem. Phys. 160, 214111 (2024)], we developed a theory called MQME-D, which allows us to decompose the overall energy dissipation process in open quantum system dynamics into contributions…
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…
We introduce a systematic framework to derive the effective Hamiltonian governing the coherent dynamics of non-Markovian open quantum systems. By applying the minimal dissipation principle, we uniquely isolate the coherent contribution to…
We have developed a thermodynamic theory in the non-equilibrium regime, which we describe as a thermodynamic system-bath model [S. Koyanagi and Y. Tanimura, J. Chem. Phys. \textbf{160}, 234112 (2024)]. Based on the dimensionless (DL)…
How should one define thermodynamic quantities (internal energy, work, heat, etc.) for quantum systems coupled to their environments strongly? We examine three (classically equivalent) definitions of a quantum system's internal energy under…
Several models of quantum open systems are known at present to violate, according to principles of the standard quantum theory of open systems, the second law of thermodynamics. Here, a new and rather trivial model of another type is…
This article is a short version of a longer article to appear in Physics Reports (cond-mat/9708200). The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of…
The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of entropy in irreversible adiabatic processes that take one equilibrium state to another. The entropy…