Related papers: Fundamental accuracy-resolution trade-off for time…

All clocks, classical or quantum, are open non equilibrium irreversible systems subject to the constraints of thermodynamics. Using examples I show that these constraints necessarily limit the performance of clocks and that good clocks…

According to thermodynamics, the inevitable increase of entropy allows the past to be distinguished from the future. From this perspective, any clock must incorporate an irreversible process that allows this flow of entropy to be tracked.…

Clocks are inherently out-of-equilibrium because, due to friction, they constantly consume free energy to keep track of time. The Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relation (TUR) quantifies the trade-off between the precision of any…

Time remains one of the least well understood concepts in physics, most notably in quantum mechanics. A central goal is to find the fundamental limits of measuring time. One of the main obstacles is the fact that time is not an observable…

Using a thermodynamically consistent, mesoscopic model for modern complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors, we study an array of logical circuits and explore how their function is constrained by recent thermodynamic uncertainty…

Physical devices operating out of equilibrium are inherently affected by thermal fluctuations, limiting their operational precision. This issue is pronounced at microscopic and especially quantum scales and can only be mitigated by…

A fundamental description of time can be consistent not only with the usual monotonic behavior but also with a periodic physical clock variable, coupled to the degrees of freedom of a system evolving in time. Generically, one would in fact…

Quantifying irreversibility of a system using finite information constitutes a major challenge in stochastic thermodynamics. We introduce an observable that measures the time-reversal asymmetry between two states after a given time lag. Our…

We analytically derive universal bounds that describe the trade-off between thermodynamic cost and precision in a sequence of events related to some internal changes of an otherwise hidden physical system. The precision is quantified by the…

All clocks, in some form or another, use the evolution of nature towards higher entropy states to quantify the passage of time. Due to the statistical nature of the second law and corresponding entropy flows, fluctuations fundamentally…

For Markov processes over discrete configurations, an asymptotic bound on the uncertainty of stochastic fluxes is derived in terms of the harmonic mean of decay rates with respect to the stationary distribution. This bound is necessarily…

We study the fundamental limitations of implementing time-dependent Hamiltonian protocols when ''time'' is provided by a quantum clock rather than an external classical parameter. For a parametric harmonic oscillator controlled through a…

In the paradigm of thermodynamic computing, instead of behaving deterministically, hardware undergoes a stochastic process in order to sample from a distribution of interest. While it has been hypothesized that thermodynamic computers may…

Living systems regulate many aspects of their behavior through periodic oscillations of molecular concentrations, which function as `biochemical clocks.' These clocks are intrinsically subject to thermal fluctuations, so that the duration…

The thermodynamic uncertainty relation expresses a seemingly universal trade-off between the cost for driving an autonomous system and precision in any output observable. It has so far been proven for discrete systems and for overdamped…

We derive general trade-off relations among the power, efficiency, and constancy for two-terminal thermoelectric systems in the linear response regime. Constancy, which quantifies the steadiness of the heat engine, is measured by its…

A quantum clock must satisfy two basic constraints. The first is a bound on the time resolution of the clock given by the difference between its maximum and minimum energy eigenvalues. The second follows from Holevo's bound on how much…

In thermodynamics, quantum coherences - superpositions between energy eigenstates - behave in distinctly nonclassical ways. Recently mathematical frameworks have emerged to account for these features and have provided a range of novel…

We consider a periodic quantum clock based on cooperative resonance fluorescence at zero temperature. In the quantum case, this system has an exact steady state and the limit cycle appears in conditional quantum dynamics under homodyne…

Clock synchronization is critically important in positioning, navigation and timing systems. While its performance has been intensively studied in a wide range of disciplines, much less is known for the fundamental thermodynamics of clock…