Related papers: Geometric structure of thermal cones
In this paper we study a class of physical systems that combine a finite number of mechanical and thermodynamic observables. We call them finite dimensional thermo-mechanical systems. We introduce these systems by means of simple examples.…
In this paper we lay out an argument that generically the psychological arrow of time should align with the thermodynamic arrow of time where that arrow is well-defined. This argument applies to any physical system that can act as a memory,…
We advance a new viewpoint on the connection between the the thermodynamical and cosmological arrows of time, which can be traced via the properties of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. We show that in the…
One of the stunning consequences of quantum correlations in thermodynamics is the reversal of the arrow of time, recently shown experimentally in [K. Micadei, et al., Nat. Commun. 10:2456 (2019)], and manifesting itself by a reversal of the…
Statistical physics cannot explain why a thermodynamic arrow of time exists, unless one postulates very special and unnatural initial conditions. Yet, we argue that statistical physics can explain why the thermodynamic arrow of time is…
The second law of thermodynamics is discussed and reformulated from a quantum information theoretic perspective for open quantum systems using relative entropy. Specifically, the relative entropy of a quantum state with respect to…
An evolution of a spherical region, subjected to uniform buoyancy force, is investigated. Incompressibility and axial symmetry are assumed, together with a buoyancy discontinuity at the boundary. The boundary turns into a vortex sheet and…
The second law of thermodynamics dictates that heat simultaneously flows from the hot to cold bath on average. To go beyond this picture, a range of works in the past decade show that, other than the average dynamical heat flux determined…
Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…
The second law of thermodynamics is asymmetric with respect to time as it says that the entropy of the universe must have been lower in the past and will be higher in the future. How this time-asymmetric law arises from the time-symmetric…
Entropy and the second law of thermodynamcs were discovered through study of the behaviour of gases in confined spaces. The related techniques developed in the kinetic theory of gases have failed to resolve the apparent conflict between the…
The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermally isolated system entropy never decreases. Most physical processes we observe in nature involve variations of macroscopic quantities over spatial and temporal scales much larger…
A model in which two weakly coupled systems maintain opposite running thermodynamic arrows of time is exhibited. Each experiences its own retarded electromagnetic interaction and can be seen by the other. The possibility of opposite-arrow…
The epistemic arrow of time is the fact that our knowledge of the past seems to be both of a different kind and more detailed than our knowledge of the future. Just like with the other arrows of time, it has often been speculated that the…
The 2nd law of thermodynamics yields an irreversible increase in entropy until thermal equilibrium is achieved. This irreversible increase is often assumed to require large and complex systems to emerge from the reversible microscopic laws…
Consider a Hamiltonian system that consists of a slow subsystem S and a fast subsystem F. The autonomous dynamics of S is driven by an effective Hamiltonian, but its thermodynamics is unexpected. We show that a well-defined thermodynamic…
The aim of this article is to analyze the relation between the second law of thermodynamics and the so-called arrow of time. For this purpose, a number of different aspects in this arrow of time are distinguished, in particular those of…
In this thesis, I investigate various aspects of one of the most fundamental questions in thermodynamics: what state transformations can quantum systems undergo while interacting with a thermal bath under specific constraints? These…
It is generally believed that a cosmological arrow of time must be associated with entropy production. Indeed, in his seminal work on cyclic cosmology, Tolman introduced a viscous fluid in order to make successive expansion/contraction…
We investigate a thermodynamic arrow associated with quantum projective measurements in terms of the Jensen-Shannon divergence between the probability distribution of energy change caused by the measurements and its time reversal…