Related papers: Work extractability from energy eigenstates under …
We develop a general theory describing the thermodynamical behavior of open quantum systems coupled to thermal baths beyond perturbation theory. Our approach is based on the exact time-local quantum master equation for the reduced open…
The validity of the Second Law of thermodynamics, indisputable in the macroscopic world, is challenged at the mesoscopic level: a mesoscopic isolated system, possessing spatial dimensions of the order of a few microns, is capable, as shown…
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis provides a framework for understanding thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems by characterizing statistical properties of local observables in energy eigenstates. Here we demonstrate…
We propose an arbitrary driven spin as the working fluid of a quantum Otto cycle in the presence of internal friction. The role of total allocated time to the adiabatic branches of the cycle, generated by different control field profiles,…
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…
Entanglement is central both to the foundations of quantum theory and, as a novel resource, to quantum information science. The theory of entanglement establishes basic laws, such as the non-increase of entanglement under local operations,…
We define thermodynamic configurations and identify two primitives of discrete quantum processes between configurations for which heat and work can be defined in a natural way. This allows us to uncover a general second law for any discrete…
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…
We study self-organisation of collective motion as a thermodynamic phenomenon, in the context of the first law of thermodynamics. It is expected that the coherent ordered motion typically self-organises in the presence of changes in the…
Understanding the asymptotic behavior of physical quantities in the thermodynamic limit is a fundamental problem in statistical mechanics. In this paper, we study how fast the eigenstate expectation values of a local operator converge to a…
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…
In the real world, one almost never knows the parameters of a thermodynamic process to infinite precision. Reflecting this, here we investigate how to extend stochastic thermodynamics to systems with uncertain parameters, including…
Many physical, biological, and even social systems are faced with the problem of how to efficiently harvest free energy from an environment that can have many possible states, yet only have a limited number of harvesting protocols to choose…
For a two-level quantum mechanical system, we derive microscopically the exact expression for the fluctuation of microscopic work in a multi-step non-equilibrium process, and we rigorously prove that in an isothermal process, the…
Jarzynski's equality sets a strong bound on the probability of violating the second law of thermodynamics by extracting work beyond the free energy difference. We derive finite-time refinements to this bound for driven systems in contact…
The maximum work extractable from a quantum system is achieved when the system is driven adiabatically. Frictional work then quantifies the difference in work output between adiabatic and non-adiabatic driving. Here we show that frictional…
Noncommutativity of observables is a central feature of quantum physics. It plays a fundamental role in the formulation of the uncertainty principle for complementary variables and strongly affects the laws of thermodynamics for systems…
We review our results for the dynamics of isolated many-body quantum systems described by one-dimensional spin-1/2 models. We explain how the evolution of these systems depends on the initial state and the strength of the perturbation that…
This paper explores quantum heat engines based on qubit and qutrit working media interacting with thermal environments through generalized amplitude damping (GAD) channels. We investigate how quantum channels can be employed to model heat…
Within the framework of microscopic thermodynamics, correlations can play a crucial role for energy extraction. Our work sheds light on this connection by demonstrating that entanglement governs the amount of extractable energy in a…