Related papers: Reflections of Sadi Carnot
Heat and work for quantum systems governed by dissipative master equations with a time-dependent driving field were introduced in the pioneering work of Alicki [J. Phys. A 12, L103 (1979)]. Alicki's work was in the Schroedinger picture;…
There is a long tradition of thinking of thermodynamics, not as a theory of fundamental physics (or even a candidate theory of fundamental physics), but as a theory of how manipulations of a physical system may be used to obtain desired…
Incorporating time into thermodynamics allows addressing the tradeoff between efficiency and power. A qubit engine serves as a toy model to study this tradeoff from first principles, based on the quantum theory of open systems. We study the…
At the very foundation of the second law of thermodynamics lies the fact that no heat engine operating between two reservoires of temperatures $T_C\leq T_H$ can overperform the ideal Carnot engine: $\langle W \rangle / \langle Q_H \rangle…
Carath\'eodory's formalism for classical thermodynamics is a rich alternative approach to this theory, although unpopular with students and physics professors. This approach dispenses with the content of thermal machines for the…
Operational quantum stochastic thermodynamics is a recently proposed theory to study the thermodynamics of open systems based on the rigorous notion of a quantum stochastic process or quantum causal model. In there, a stochastic trajectory…
Building on the fundamental equation, this study revisits key thermodynamic concepts in a cohesive and innovative manner. It demonstrates the consistency of thermodynamic theory while addressing and clarifying common misconceptions and…
From thermodynamics point of view, in this era of aiming at energy conservation and sustainability, we need to develop more accurate ways to design thermal power, cooling and heat pump cycles. It has been the general practice in…
Given the evolution of an arbitrary open quantum system, we formulate a general and unambiguous method to separate the internal energy change of the system into an entropy-related contribution and a part causing no entropy change,…
We consider a theory of quantum thermodynamics with multiple conserved quantities (or charges). To this end, we generalize the seminal results of Sparaciari et al. [PRA 96:052112, 2017] to the case of multiple, in general non-commuting…
We develop a general theory describing the thermodynamical behavior of open quantum systems coupled to thermal baths beyond perturbation theory. Our approach is based on the exact time-local quantum master equation for the reduced open…
Considering an entropy-based division of energy transferred into heat and work, we develop an alternative theoretical framework for the thermodynamic analysis of two-level systems. When comparing these results with those obtained under the…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate interrelations. Often thermodynamics is considered to be the logical premise to justify that information is physical - through Landauer's principle -, thereby also linking information and…
We present a (random) mechanical model consisting of two lottery-like reservoirs at altitude $E_h$ and $E_l<E_h$, respectively, in the earth's gravitational field. Both reservoirs consist of $N$ possible ball locations. The upper reservoir…
A microscopic understanding of the thermodynamic entropy in quantum systems has been a mystery ever since the invention of quantum mechanics. In classical physics, this entropy is believed to be the logarithm of the volume of phase space…
There are some misnomers and misconceptions about what is heat and what is work; the recognition of heat and work is even more difficult when it comes to categorize energy as heat or work. Since both heat and work are energy the…
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…
Interesting effects arise in cyclic machines where both heat and ergotropy transfer take place between the energising bath and the system (the working fluid). Such effects correspond to unconventional decompositions of energy exchange…
The equations of state for an ideal generalized gas, like an ideal quantum gas, are expressed in terms of power laws of the temperature. The reduction of an ideal generalized gas to an ideal classical case occurs when the characteristic…
We study the time evolution of a periodically driven quantum-mechanical system coupled to several reserviors of free fermions at different temperatures. This is a paradigm of a cyclic thermodynamic process. We introduce the notion of a…