Related papers: Thermodynamics: A Clear Conceptual Framework
The use of statistical methods to model gravitational systems is crucial to physics practice, but the extent to which thermodynamics and statistical mechanics genuinely apply to these systems is a contentious issue. This paper provides new…
How should one define thermodynamic quantities (internal energy, work, heat, etc.) for quantum systems coupled to their environments strongly? We examine three (classically equivalent) definitions of a quantum system's internal energy under…
Universality of classical thermodynamics rests on the central limit theorem, due to which, measurements of thermal fluctuations are unable to reveal detailed information regarding the microscopic structure of a macroscopic body. When small…
It is believed that thermodynamic laws are associated with random processes occurring in the system and, therefore, deterministic mechanical systems cannot be described within the framework of the thermodynamic approach. In this paper, we…
Thermodynamics was developed in the XIXth century to provide a physical description to engines and other macroscopic thermal machines. Since then, progress in nanotechnologies urged to extend these formalism, initially designed for…
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…
We describe a symplectic approach towards thermodynamics in which thermodynamic transformations are described by (symplectic) Hamiltonian dynamics. Upon identifying the spaces of equilibrium states with Lagrangian submanifolds of a…
Single particle models are sufficient for many topics in introductory physics courses, but become misleading when applied to situations involving changes in internal energy. This paper merges two parallel attempts to reform the teaching of…
Thermodynamics entails a set of mathematical conditions on quantum Markovian dynamics. In particular, strict energy conservation between the system and environment implies that the dissipative dynamical map commutes with the unitary system…
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…
The principle of covariance, a cornerstone of modern physics, asserts the equivalence of all inertial frames of reference. Fluctuation theorems, as extensions of the second law of thermodynamics, establish universal connections between…
The laws of thermodynamics, despite their wide range of applicability, are known to break down when systems are correlated with their environments. Here, we generalize thermodynamics to physical scenarios which allow presence of…
Quantum thermodynamics addresses the emergence of thermodynamical laws from quantum mechanics. The link is based on the intimate connection of quantum thermodynamics with the theory of open quantum systems. Quantum mechanics inserts…
A comparative analysis of two concepts aimed at microscopic substantiation of thermodynamics and kinetics has been performed. The first concept is based on the idea of microscopic reversibility of the dynamics of a system of particles,…
Thermoelectricity is traditionally explained via Onsager's irreversible, flux-force framework. The coupled flows of heat and electric charge are modelled as steady-state flows, driven by the thermodynamic forces defined in terms of the…
The past twenty years have seen a resurgence of interest in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, thanks to advances in the theory of stochastic processes and in their thermodynamic interpretation. Fluctuation theorems provide fundamental…
Thermodynamics is usually formulated on the presumption that the observer has complete information about the system he/she deals with: no parasitic current, exact evaluation of the forces that drive the system. For example, the acclaimed…
Key to resolving the scientific challenge of the glass transition is to understand the origin of the massive increase in viscosity of liquids cooled below their melting temperature (avoiding crystallisation). A number of competing and often…
This paper gives a concise, mathematically rigorous description of phenomenological equilibrium thermodynamics for single-phase systems in the absence of chemical reactions and external forces. The present approach is similar to that of…
Statistical classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are developed and well-known theories that represent a basis for modern physics. The two described theories are well known and have been well studied. As these theories contain numerous…