Related papers: Work Statistics via Real-Time Effective Field Theo…
Extracting useful work from quantum systems is a fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics. In scenarios where rapid protocols are desired -- whether due to practical constraints or deliberate design choices -- a fundamental trade-off…
The treatment of quantum thermodynamic systems beyond weak coupling is of increasing relevance, yet extremely challenging. The evaluation of thermodynamic quantities in strong-coupling regimes requires a nonperturbative knowledge of the…
We identify the conditions under which a stochastic driving inducing energy changes on a system coupled to a thermal bath can be treated as a work source. When these conditions are met, the work statistics satisfies the Crooks fluctuation…
Work and quantum correlations are two fundamental resources in thermodynamics and quantum information theory. In this work we study how to use correlations among quantum systems to optimally store work. We analyse this question for isolated…
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,…
Considering a general microscopic model for a quantum measuring apparatus comprising a quantum probe coupled to a thermal bath, we analyze the energetic resources necessary for the realization of a quantum measurement, which includes the…
We consider work extraction from $N$ copies of a quantum system. When the same work-extraction process is implemented on each copy, the relative size of fluctuations is expected to decay as $1/\sqrt{N}$. Here, we consider protocols where…
We study coupled quantum systems as the working media of thermodynamic machines. Under a suitable phase-space transformation, the coupled systems can be expressed as a composition of independent subsystems. We find that for the coupled…
Recent research on the fundamentals of statistical mechanics has led to an interesting discovery [1-3]: With locally nonchaotic barriers, as Boltzmann's H-theorem is inapplicable, there exist nontrivial non-thermodynamic systems that can…
In quantum systems which satisfy the hypothesis of equal weights for eigenstates [4], the maximum work principle (for extremely slow and relatively fast operation) is derived by using quantum dynamics alone. This may be a crucial step in…
Recent studies have investigated the role of entanglement in the operation of a two-qubit system as a heat engine, showing that work can be extracted from a single heat bath without direct heat dissipation between the two-qubit system and…
Passivity is a fundamental concept in thermodynamics that demands a quantum system's energy cannot be lowered by any reversible, unitary process acting on the system. In the limit of many such systems, passivity leads in turn to the concept…
With the development of quantum thermodynamics it has been shown that relaxation to thermal equilibrium and with it the concept of heat flux may emerge directly from quantum mechanics. This happens for a large class of quantum systems if…
It is often claimed, that from a quantum system of d levels, and entropy S and heat bath of temperature T one can draw kT(ln d -S) amount of work. However, the usual arguments based on Szilard engine are not fully rigorous. Here we prove…
Heat engines convert thermal energy into mechanical work both in the classical and quantum regimes. However, quantum theory offers genuine nonclassical forms of energy, different from heat, which so far have not been exploited in cyclic…
Active states, from which work can be extracted by time-dependent perturbations, are an important resource for quantum thermodynamics in the absence of heat baths. Here we characterize this resource, establishing a resource theory that…
We introduce the resource-theoretic free energy of a quantum channel as the maximal work extractable from the channel as its output equilibrates to a thermal state and its reference system remains locally intact. It is proportional to the…
We investigate work extraction from non-interacting fermions under arbitrary unitary operations and the more restricted class of Gaussian unitary operations that can be feasibly implemented. We characterize general quantum states in…
We apply the concept of a frequency-dependent effective temperature based on the fluctuation-dissipation ratio to a driven Brownian particle in a nonequilibrium steady state. Using this system as a thermostat for a weakly coupled harmonic…
Quantum systems strongly coupled to many-body systems equilibrate to the reduced state of a global thermal state, deviating from the local thermal state of the system as it occurs in the weak-coupling limit. Taking this insight as a…