Related papers: Thermality versus objectivity: can they peacefully…
Thermal states are the bedrock of statistical physics. Nevertheless, when and how they actually arise in closed quantum systems is not fully understood. We consider this question for systems with local Hamiltonians on finite quantum…
The quantum measurement problem, the unresolved conflict between the unitary evolution of the wave function and the postulate of wave function collapse, remains the most profound conceptual challenge in quantum foundations. While…
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…
We study the relaxation of a quantum system towards the thermal equilibrium using tools developed within the context of quantum information theory. We consider a model in which the system is a qubit, and reaches equilibrium after several…
The last decade has witnessed the remarkable progress in our understanding of thermalization in isolated quantum systems. Combining the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis with quantum measurement theory, we extend the framework of quantum…
Understanding how coherence of quantum systems affects thermodynamic quantities, such as work and heat, is essential for harnessing quantumness effectively in thermal quantum technologies. Here, we study the unique contributions of quantum…
Quantum measurement is physically realized through a finite dynamical interaction between a system and a measuring apparatus, giving rise to a continuous transition from weak to strong regimes. While this crossover is well understood under…
Quantum coherence provides a controllable thermodynamic resource that can raise or lower the effective temperature of a cavity mode, enabling efficiency tuning in quantum heat engines. Here, we derive analytic expressions for the effective…
The fact that macroscopic systems approach thermal equilibrium may seem puzzling, for example, because it may seem to conflict with the time-reversibility of the microscopic dynamics. We here prove that in a macroscopic quantum system for a…
The limit of small entropy production is reached in relaxing systems long after preparation, and in stationary driven systems in the limit of small driving power. Surprisingly, for extended systems this limit is not in general the…
High temperature expansion of the partition function for a particle on a segment of a line is found to show an example of the quantum system that thermodynamical functions do not approach the thermodynamical functions of its classical…
Coherent control of self-contained quantum systems offers the possibility to fabricate smallest thermal transistors. The steady coherence created by the delocalization of electronic excited states arouses nonlinear heat transports in…
Quantum decoherence is seen as an undesired source of irreversibility that destroys quantum resources. Quantum coherences seem to be a property that vanishes at thermodynamic equilibrium. Away from equilibrium, quantum coherences challenge…
The interaction of a quantum system with its environment causes decoherence, setting a fundamental limit on the suitability of a system for quantum information processing. However, we show that if the quantum system consists of coupled…
Most discussions of decoherence in the literature consider the high-temperature regime but it is also known that, in the presence of dissipation, decoherence can occur even at zero temperature. Whereas most previous investigations all…
Thermodynamics relies on the possibility to describe systems composed of a large number of constituents in terms of few macroscopic variables. Its foundations are rooted into the paradigm of statistical mechanics, where thermal properties…
Quantum thermal transistor is a microscopic thermodynamical device that can modulate and amplify heat current through two terminals by the weak heat current at the third terminal. Here we study the common environmental effects on a quantum…
The laws of thermodynamics provide a clear concept of the temperature for an equilibrium system in the continuum limit. Meanwhile, the equipartition theorem allows one to make a connection between the ensemble average of the kinetic energy…
Recent results in relativistic quantum information and quantum thermodynamics have independently shown that in the quantum regime, a system may fail to thermalise when subject to quantum-controlled application of the same, single…
Environments in quantum thermodynamics usually take the role of heat baths. These baths are Markovian, weakly coupled to the system, and initialized in a thermal state. Whenever one of these properties is missing, standard quantum…