Related papers: Catalytic transformations for thermal operations
The introduction of the quantum analogue of a Carnot engine based on a bath comprising of particles with a small amount of coherence initiated an active line of research on the harnessing of different quantum resources for the enhancement…
The separation of internal energy into heat and work in quantum thermodynamics is a controversial issue for a long time, and we revisit and solve this problem in this work. It is shown that the Hamiltonian plays dual roles for a quantum…
For quantum systems that are weakly coupled to a much 'bigger' environment, thermalization of possibly far from equilibrium initial ensembles is demonstrated: for sufficiently large times, the ensemble is for all practical purposes…
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the development of techniques which transfer trapped particles to very low temperatures. Here we focus our attention on a heating mechanism which contributes to the finite temperature limit…
The first law of thermodynamics restates the law of conservation of energy. It partitions the change in energy of a system into two pieces, heat and work. While there is no ambiguity to define heat and work in classical thermodynamics,…
We consider quenches of a quantum system that is prepared in a canonical equilibrium state of one Hamiltonian and then evolves unitarily in time under a different Hamiltonian. Technically, our main result is a systematic expansion of the…
Recent research on the thermodynamic arrow of time, at the microscopic scale, has questioned the universality of its direction. Theoretical studies showed that quantum correlations can be used to revert the natural heat flow (from the hot…
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…
Preparing a quantum system in a pure state is ultimately limited by the nature of the system's evolution in the presence of its environment and by the initial state of the environment itself. We show that, when the system and environment…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
The efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound. This bound follows from the second law of thermodynamics and is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the…
Conversion of entangled states under (Stochastic) Local Operations and Classical Communication admits the phenomenon of catalysis. Here we explore the possibility of a copy of the initial state itself to perform as a catalyst, which we call…
From the steam engine to current nano-devices, the design of efficient thermal machines has been instrumental in modern societies. In its essence a thermal engine can be thought as a working substance, in contact with two or more baths,…
The majorization relation has been shown to be useful in classifying which transformations of jointly held quantum states are possible using local operations and classical communication. In some cases, a direct transformation between two…
Theoretical treatments of periodically-driven quantum thermal machines (PD-QTMs) are largely focused on the limit-cycle stage of operation characterized by a periodic state of the system. Yet, this regime is not immediately accessible for…
Quantum decoherence is seen as an undesired source of irreversibility that destroys quantum resources. Quantum coherences seem to be a property that vanishes at thermodynamic equilibrium. Away from equilibrium, quantum coherences challenge…
The thermalization of an isolated quantum system is described by quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, while these two subjects are still not fully consistent with each other. This leaves a less-explored region where both quantum and…
The resource theory of thermal operations, an established model for small-scale thermodynamics, provides an extension of equilibrium thermodynamics to nonequilibrium situations. On a lattice of any dimension with any translation-invariant…
Thermal operations are quantum channels that have taken a prominent role in deriving fundamental thermodynamic limitations in quantum systems. We show that these channels are uniquely characterized by a purely quantum information theoretic…
Recent experiments claimed that the enhancement of catalytic reaction rates occurs via the reduction of activation barriers driven by non-equilibrium (``hot'') electrons in plasmonic metal nanoparticles. These experiments place plasmonic…