Related papers: Quantum Thermodynamics
The interplay between thermodynamics, general relativity and quantum mechanics has long intrigued researchers. Recently, important advances have been obtained in thermodynamics, mainly regarding its application to the quantum domain through…
Deriving the laws of thermodynamics from a microscopic picture is a central quest of statistical mechanics. This tutorial focuses on the derivation of the first and second law for closed and open quantum systems far from equilibrium, where…
Fluctuations strongly affect the dynamics and functionality of nanoscale thermal machines. Recent developments in stochastic thermodynamics have shown that fluctuations in many far-from-equilibrium systems are constrained by the rate of…
Let us imagine that there is an overall quantum theory (not necessarily recognized yet) of matter and energy ({\it i.e.}, of elementary fermions and bosons) interacting with the physical spacetime (treated on a quantum level). Since states…
Quantum thermodynamics supplies a consistent description of quantum heat engines and refrigerators up to the level of a single few level system coupled to the environment. Once the environment is split into three;a hot, cold and work…
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…
In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…
Quantum mechanics is usually presented starting from a series of postulates about the mathematical framework. In this work we show that those same postulates can be derived by assuming that measurements are discrete interactions: that is,…
A quasi-static process is realized in a purely quantum-mechanical model which is described by oscillator (or particle) systems having relative-phase interactions. Time development of a mixture of two oscillator (or particle) systems which…
Our fundamental theories, i.e., the quantum theory and general relativity, are invariant under time reversal. Only when we treat system from the point of view of thermodynamics, i.e., averaging between many subsystem components, an arrow of…
We have developed a theoretical formalism to introduce temperature as a parameter into the framework of non-relativistic quantum mechanics using the laws of classical thermodynamics and the canonical ensemble scheme of statistical…
Incorporating time into thermodynamics allows addressing the tradeoff between efficiency and power. A qubit engine serves as a toy model to study this tradeoff from first principles, based on the quantum theory of open systems. We study the…
Quantum thermodynamics is a research field that aims at fleshing out the ultimate limits of thermodynamic processes in the deep quantum regime. A complete picture of quantum thermodynamics allows for catalysts, i.e., systems facilitating…
In classical Markov jump processes, current fluctuations can only be reduced at the cost of increased dissipation. To explore how quantum effects influence this trade-off, we analyze the uncertainty of steady-state currents in Markovian…
The heat flow between a quantum system and its reservoir is analyzed when initially both are in a separable thermal state and asymptotically approach a correlated equilibrium. General findings are illustrated for specific systems and…
The standard approach to deriving fluctuation theorems fails to capture the effect of quantum correlation and coherence in the initial state of the system. Here we overcome this difficulty and derive heat exchange fluctuation theorem in the…
The thermodynamics of quantum systems coupled to periodically modulated heat baths and work reservoirs is developed. By identifying affinities and fluxes, the first and second law are formulated consistently. In the linear response regime,…
The existence of fluctuations of temperature has been a somewhat controversial topic in thermodynamics but nowadays it is recognized that they must be taken into account in small, finite systems. Although for nonequilibrium steady states…
The statistical mechanical description of small systems staying in thermal equilibrium with an environment can be achieved by means of the Hamiltonian of mean force. In contrast to the reduced density matrix of an open quantum system, or…
In this paper, the foundations of classical phenomenological thermodynamics are being thoroughly revisited. A new rigorous basis for thermodynamics is laid out in the main text and presented in full detail in the appendix. All relevant…