Related papers: Approximate second laws and energy extraction from…
Recent work using tools from quantum information theory has shown that at the nanoscale where quantum effects become prevalent, there is not one thermodynamical second law but many. Derivations of these laws assume that an experimenter has…
The resource theory of thermal operations explains the state transformations that are possible in a very specific thermodynamic setting: there is only one thermal bath, auxiliary systems can only be in corresponding thermal state (free…
We show that a cyclic unitary process can extract work from the thermodynamic equilibrium state of an engineered quantum dissipative process. Systems in the equilibrium states of these processes serve as batteries, storing energy. The…
Ergotropy provides a fundamental measure of the extractable work from a quantum system and, consequently, of the maximal useful energy, or charge, stored within it. Understanding how this quantity can be manipulated and transformed…
We consider a generalisation of thermodynamics that deals with multiple conserved quantities at the level of individual quantum systems. Each conserved quantity, which, importantly, need not commute with the rest, can be extracted and…
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…
Interactions of quantum systems with their environment play a crucial role in resource-theoretic approaches to thermodynamics in the microscopic regime. Here, we analyze the possible state transitions in the presence of "small" heat baths…
We propose a new form of the Second Law inequality that defines a tight bound for extractable work from the non-equilibrium quantum state. In classical thermodynamics, the optimal work is given by the difference of free energy, what…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
The gap between thermal operations (TO) and enhanced thermal operations (EnTO) is an open problem raised in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 210403 (2015)]. It originates from the limitations on coherence evolutions. Here we solve this problem by…
This work presents a general unifying theoretical framework for quantum non-equilibrium systems. It is based on a re-statement of the dynamical problem as one of inferring the distribution of collision events that move a system toward…
The second law of thermodynamics tells us which state transformations are so statistically unlikely that they are effectively forbidden. Its original formulation, due to Clausius, states that "Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer…
In stochastic thermodynamics work is a random variable whose average is bounded by the change in the free energy of the system. In most treatments, however, the work reservoir that absorbs this change is either tacitly assumed or modelled…
The second law of thermodynamics, formulated as an ultimate bound on the maximum extractable work, has been rigorously derived in multiple scenarios. However, the unavoidable limitations that emerge due to the lack of control on small…
We initially prepare a quantum linear oscillator weakly coupled to a bath in equilibrium at an arbitrary temperature. We disturb this system by varying a Hamiltonian parameter of the coupled oscillator, namely, either its spring constant or…
Within quantum thermodynamics, many tasks are modelled by processes that require work sources represented by out-of-equilibrium quantum systems, often dubbed quantum batteries, in which work can be deposited or from which work can be…
Going beyond isolated system dynamics, we examine how local and spatially correlated reservoirs influence the work extraction in quantum batteries. By employing a one-dimensional spin-1/2 model coupled to baths via dephasing and…
We study the energy extraction from and charging to a finite-dimensional quantum system by general quantum operations. We prove that the changes in energy induced by unital quantum operations are limited by the ergotropy/charging bound for…
The second law of thermodynamics places a limitation into which states a system can evolve into. For systems in contact with a heat bath, it can be combined with the law of energy conservation, and it says that a system can only evolve into…
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…