Related papers: Heat pump driven entirely by quantum correlation
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…
Thermodynamics at the nanoscale is known to differ significantly from its familiar macroscopic counterpart: the possibility of state transitions is not determined by free energy alone, but by an infinite family of free-energy-like…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate inter-relations. The justification of the fact that information is physical, is done by inter-linking information and thermodynamics - through Landauer's principle. This modern approach towards…
We consider a generalisation of thermodynamics that deals with multiple conserved quantities at the level of individual quantum systems. Each conserved quantity, which, importantly, need not commute with the rest, can be extracted and…
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…
Once in its non-equilibrium steady state, a nanoscale system coupled to several heat baths may be thought-of as a quantum heat pump. Depending on the direction of its stationary heat flows it may function as e.g. a refrigerator or a heat…
A ballistic atom pump is a system containing two reservoirs of neutral atoms or molecules and a junction connecting them containing a localized time-varying potential. Atoms move through the pump as independent particles. Under certain…
Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…
Coherent quantum oscillators are basic physical systems both in quantum statistical physics and quantum thermodynamics. Their realizations in lab often involve solid-state devices sensitive to changes in ambient temperature. We represent…
We consider continuously monitored quantum systems and introduce definitions of work and heat along individual quantum trajectories that are valid for coherent superpositions of energy eigenstates. We use these quantities to extend the…
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…
We study a chain of interacting individual quantum systems connected to heat baths at different temperatures on both ends. Starting with the two-system case, we thoroughly investigate the conditions for heat rectification (asymmetric heat…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamic cycle of a quantum heat engine carrying out an Otto thermodynamic cycle. We use the thermal properties of a moving heat bath with relativistic velocity with respect to the cold bath. As a working…
For heat engines working between two heat baths, functionality is often conditioned on a set of fixed constraints such as given internal structure of the engine and given temperatures for the baths. It is, however, important to devise heat…
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…
The optimal power performance of a first principle quantum heat engine model shows friction-like phenomena when the internal fluid Hamiltonian does not commute with the external control field. The model is based on interacting…
A recently proposed quantum mechanical criterion `concavity of energy' for the second law of thermodynamics is studied also for classical particle systems confined in a bounded region by a potential with a time-dependent coupling constant.…
Situations where a spontaneous process of energy or matter transfer is enhanced by an external device are widespread in nature (human sweating system, enzyme catalysis, facilitated diffusion across bio-membranes, industrial heat…
We show that finite system-reservoir coupling imposes a distinct quantum limit on the performance of a non-equilibrium quantum heat engine. Even in the absence of quantum friction along the isentropic strokes, finite system-reservoir…
Optical pump-probe signals can be viewed as work done by the matter while transferring the energy between two coherent baths (from pump to probe). In thermodynamics a heat engine, such as laser, is a device which performs similar work but…