Related papers: Geometric structure of thermal cones
The second law of thermodynamics - the usual statement of the arrow of time - has been called the most fundamental law of physics. It is thus difficult to conceive that a single dynamical system could contain subsystems, in significant…
In this work we analyse the structure of the thermodynamic arrow of time, defined by transformations that leave the thermal equilibrium state unchanged, in classical (incoherent) and quantum (coherent) regimes. We note that in the…
In classical thermodynamics, heat cannot spontaneously pass from a colder system to a hotter system, which is called the thermodynamic arrow of time. However, if the initial states are entangled, the direction of the thermodynamic arrow of…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
Arrows of time - thermodynamical, cosmological, electromagnetic, quantum mechanical, psychological - are basic properties of Nature. For a quantum system-bath closed system the de-correlated initial conditions and no-memory (Markovian)…
The crucial role of ambient correlations in determining thermodynamic behavior is established. A class of entangled states of two macroscopic systems is constructed such that each component is in a state of thermal equilibrium at a given…
For more than a century, physics has known of a puzzling conflict between the T-asymmetry of thermodynamic phenomena and the T-symmetry of the underlying microphysics on which these phenomena depend. This paper provides a guide to the…
The second law of thermodynamics places a limitation into which states a system can evolve into. For systems in contact with a heat bath, it can be combined with the law of energy conservation, and it says that a system can only evolve into…
Fundamental laws of physics are symmetric under time reversal ($T$) symmetry, but the $T$ symmetry is strongly broken in the macroscopic world. In this Perspective, I review $T$ symmetry breaking frameworks: \textit{second law of…
If an asymmetry in time does not arise from the fundamental dynamical laws of physics, it may be found in special boundary conditions. The argument normally goes that since thermodynamic entropy in the past is lower than in the future…
We investigate the laws of thermodynamics in an accelerating universe driven by dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state. In the case we consider that the physically relevant part of the Universe is that envelopped by the…
Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This chapter explores how this asymmetry (a classic example of a broken symmetry) arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction…
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…
Time-asymmetric behavior as embodied in the second law of thermodynamics is observed in {\it individual macroscopic} systems. It can be understood as arising naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws when account is taken of a) the…
The second law of thermodynamics points to the existence of an `arrow of time', along which entropy only increases. This arises despite the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) of the microscopic laws of nature. Within quantum theory, TRS underpins…
The second law of thermodynamics constitutes a fundamental principle of physics, precluding the existence of perpetual motion machines and providing a natural definition of the arrow of time. Its scope extends across virtually all areas of…
On the one hand, the dissipated heat of a thermodynamic work extraction process upper bounds the non-predictive information, which the associated system encodes about its environment. Thus, emergent information processing capabilities can…
Recent research on the thermodynamic arrow of time, at the microscopic scale, has questioned the universality of its direction. Theoretical studies showed that quantum correlations can be used to revert the natural heat flow (from the hot…
This work is focused on the exploration of the thermodynamics foundations of the matter creation scenario when a generalized form of the second law of thermodynamics for this scheme is implemented. In this scenario we consider an expanding…
Emergence of one-time-direction macroscopic evolution of a classical system of two mixed gases having different temperatures is derived and explained. The analysis performed at the microscopic level, where the time-symmetric laws of…