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We provide a characterization of energy in the form of exchanged heat and work between two interacting constituents of a closed, bipartite, correlated quantum system. By defining a binding energy we derive a consistent quantum formulation…
Local master equations are a widespread tool to model open quantum systems, especially in the context of many-body systems. These equations, however, are believed to lead to thermodynamic anomalies and violation of the laws of…
We identify and interpret the possible quantum thermal machine regimes with a transverse-field Ising model as the working substance. In general, understanding the emergence of such regimes in a many-body quantum system is challenging due to…
An explicit expression for the temperature of an open two-level quantum system is obtained as a function of local properties, under the hypothesis of weak interaction with the environment. This temperature is defined for both equilibrium…
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics can provide strong advantages when compared to more standard equilibrium situations. Here, we present a general framework to study its application to concrete problems, which is valid also beyond the…
Why do quantum evolutions occur and why do they stop at certain points? In classical thermodynamics affinity was introduced to predict in which direction an irreversible process proceeds. In this paper the quantum mechanical counterpart of…
Common intuition tells us that if one part of a connected system is cooled continuously, the other parts should also cool down. This intuition can be given a microscopic foundation for the case of a generic quantum system coupled to a…
Quantum thermodynamics studies how quantum systems and operations may be exploited as sources of work to perform useful thermodynamic tasks. In real-world conditions, the evolution of open quantum systems typically displays memory effects,…
Building on parallels between geometric quantum mechanics and classical mechanics, we explore an alternative basis for quantum thermodynamics that exploits the differential geometry of the underlying state space. We develop both…
'Relativistic thermodynamics' should be understood not as a generalization of a non-relativistic theory but as an application of a general thermodynamic framework, neutral as to spacetime setting and allowing arbitrary conserved quantities,…
We investigate the thermodynamics of a hybrid quantum device consisting of two qubits collectively interacting with a quantum rotor and coupled dissipatively to two equilibrium reservoirs at different temperatures. By modelling the dynamics…
We study two small quantum systems coupled to the same reservoir which is in thermal equilibrium. By studying the particle density and the energy density in the two systems before and after they contact each other, we find that the two…
Isothermal processes of a finitely extended, driven quantum system in contact with an infinite heat bath are studied from the point of view of quantum statistical mechanics. Notions like heat flux, work and entropy are defined for…
Thermodynamics is the phenomenological theory of heat and work. Here we analyze to what extent quantum thermodynamic relations are immune to the underlying mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. As a main result, we show that the…
Thermodynamics has recently been extended to small scales with resource theories that model heat exchanges. Real physical systems exchange diverse quantities: heat, particles, angular momentum, etc. We generalize thermodynamic resource…
Experimental data and the principles of quantum mechanics suggest that a crystal is a condensate of `wavicles' enclosed in a box, where `wavicle' denotes the indefinite wave-particle status of the microscopic constituents. When it is not…
Quantum thermodynamics allows for the interconversion of quantum coherence and mechanical work. Quantum coherence is thus a potential physical resource for quantum machines. However, formulating a general nonequilibrium thermodynamics of…
We discuss a quantum refrigerator to increase the ground state probability of a target qubit whose energy difference between the ground and excited states is less than the thermal energy of the environment. We consider two types of quantum…
The internal energy of individual subsystems is not well defined in interacting quantum systems, leading to ambiguities in the definition of thermodynamic quantities. Applying the Schmidt basis formalism to general bipartite autonomous…
How may we quantify the value of physical resources, such as entangled quantum states, heat baths or lasers? Existing resource theories give us partial answers; however, these rely on idealizations, like perfectly independent copies of…