Related papers: Approximate second laws and energy extraction from…

The possibility of a controlled manipulation with molecules at the nanoscale allows us to gain net work from thermal energy, although this seems to be in contradiction to the Second Law of thermodynamics. Any manipulation, however, causes…

We discuss how the thermalization of an elementary quantum system is modified when the system is placed in an environment out of thermal equilibrium. To this aim we provide a detailed investigation of the dynamics of an atomic system placed…

There exist severe limitations on the accuracy of low-temperature thermometry, which poses a major challenge for future quantum-technological applications. Low-temperature sensitivity might be manipulated by tailoring the interactions…

The quantum thermodynamic behavior of small systems is investigated in presence of finite quantum dissipation. We consider the archetype cases of a damped harmonic oscillator and a free quantum Brownian particle. A main finding is that…

The quantum mechanical motion of the atomic nuclei is considered over a single- or a multi-dimensional subspace of electronic states which is separated by a gap from the rest of the electronic spectrum over the relevant range of nuclear…

Thermodynamics teaches that if a system initially off-equilibrium is coupled to work sources, the maximum work that it may yield is governed by its energy and entropy. For finite systems this bound is usually not reachable. The maximum…

In this work, we investigate the amount of energy that can be extracted or charged through unitary operations when only minimal information about the state is known. Assuming knowledge of only the mean energy of the state, we start by…

Thermodynamics is traditionally concerned with systems comprised of a large number of particles. Here we present a framework for extending thermodynamics to individual quantum systems, including explicitly a thermal bath and work-storage…

We extend the Exchange Fluctuation Theorem for energy exchange between thermal quantum systems beyond the assumption of molecular chaos, and describe the non-equilibrium exchange dynamics of correlated quantum states. The relation…

We generalize the second law of thermodynamics in its maximum work formulation for a nonequilibrium initial distribution. It is found that in an isothermal process, the Boltzmann relative entropy (H-function) is not just a Lyapunov function…

For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…

Quantum coherence is one of the fundamental aspects distinguishing classical and quantum theories. Coherence between different energy eigenstates is particularly important, as it serves as a valuable resource under the law of energy…

We show that it is possible to have non-zero ergotropy in the steady-states of an open quantum system consisting of qubits that are collectively coupled to a thermal bath at a finite temperature. The dynamics of our model leads the qubits…

Using the quasi-equilibrium Helmholtz energy (qHE), defined as the thermodynamic work in a quasi-static process, we investigate the thermal properties of both an isothermal process and a transition process between the adiabatic and…

We present some novel thermodynamic ideas based on the Maupertuis principle. By considering Hamiltonians written in terms of appropriate action-angle variables we show that thermal states can be characterized by the action variables and by…

With the progress of nano-technology, thermodynamics also has to be scaled down, calling for specific protocols to extract and measure work. Usually, such protocols involve the action of an external, classical field (the battery) of…

Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…

Any quantum operation applied on a physical system is performed as a unitary transformation on a larger extended system. If the extension used is a heat bath in thermal equilibrium, the concomitant change in the state of the bath…

One of the most fundamental tasks in quantum thermodynamics is extracting energy from one system and subsequently storing this energy in an appropriate battery. Both of these steps, work extraction and charging, can be viewed as cyclic…

We have made a simple and natural modification of a recent quantum refrigerator model presented by Cleuren et al. in Phys. Rev, Lett.108, 120603 (2012). The original model consist of two metal leads acting as heat baths, and a set of…