Related papers: Quantum measurement of work in mesoscopic systems

We precise for the first time the quantum behavior of a measurement apparatus in the framework of the usual interpretation of quantum physics. We show how such a behavior can also be studied by the retrodiction of pre-measurement states…

The definition of heat in quantum mechanics is ambiguous. Complications arise in particular when the coupling between a quantum system and a thermal environment is non-negligible, as the boundary between the two becomes blurred, making the…

Quantum mechanics is usually formulated with an implicit assumption that agents who can observe and interact with the world are external to it and have a classical memory. However, there is no accepted way to define the quantum-classical…

In the quantum regime, the third law of thermodynamics implies the unattainability of pure states. As shown recently, such unattainability implies that a unitary interaction between the measured system and a measuring apparatus can never…

Measurement in quantum mechanics is generally described as an irreversible process that perturbs the wavefunction describing a quantum system. In this work we establish a formal connection between the measurement description within the…

We set up a framework for quantum stochastic thermodynamics based solely on experimentally controllable, but otherwise arbitrary interventions at discrete times. Using standard assumptions about the system-bath dynamics and insights from…

Advantages of quantum effects in several technologies, such as computation and communication, have already been well appreciated, and some devices, such as quantum computers and communication links, exhibiting superiority to their classical…

Quantum mechanics is derived from the principle that the universe contain as much variety as possible, in the sense of maximizing the distinctiveness of each subsystem. The quantum state of a microscopic system is defined to correspond to…

We describe a quantum mechanical measurement as a variational principle including interaction between the system under measurement and the measurement apparatus. Augmenting the action with a nonlocal term (a double integration over the…

Quantum thermodynamics aims at extending standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to systems with sizes well below the thermodynamic limit. A rapidly evolving research field, which promises to change our understanding…

Quantum metrology uses small changes in the output probabilities of a quantum measurement to estimate the magnitude of a weak interaction with the system. The sensitivity of this procedure depends on the relation between the input state,…

Measurement is an important scientific activity. In most of science, including classical physics, is may be understood as a way of finding out about the physical world and representing the results numerically. No-go theorems show that…

Using a very simple Gedankenexperiment, I remind the reader that (contrary to what happens in classical mechanics) the energy of a quantum system is inevitably increased just by performing (some) textbook measurements on it. As a direct…

This paper presents the measurement problem from the point of view of the thermal interpretation of quantum physics introduced in Part II. The measurement of a Hermitian quantity $A$ is regarded as giving an uncertain value approximating…

How much work can be extracted from a heat bath using a thermal machine? The study of this question has a very long tradition in statistical physics in the weak-coupling limit, applied to macroscopic systems. However, the assumption that…

We propose a definition of externally measurable quantum work in driven systems. Work is given as a quantum observable on a control device which is forcing the system and can be determined without knowledge of the system Hamiltonian…

According to the subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics (QBism), the instruments used to measure quantum systems are to be regarded as an extension of the senses of the agent who is using them, and quantum states describe…

One of the fundamental questions in the emerging field of quantum thermodynamics is the role played by coherence in energetic processes that occur at the quantum level. Here, we address this issue by investigating two different quantum…

Non-equilibrium effects may have a profound impact on the performance of thermal devices performing thermodynamic tasks such as refrigeration or heat pumping. The possibility of enhancing the performance of thermodynamic operations by means…

Invasiveness of quantum measurements is a genuinely quantum mechanical feature that is not necessarily detrimental: Here we show how quantum measurements can be used to fuel a cooling engine. We illustrate quantum measurement cooling (QMC)…