Related papers: Local energy assignment for two interacting quantu…
How to rigorously define thermodynamic quantities such as heat, work, and internal energy in open quantum systems driven far from equilibrium remains a significant open question in quantum thermodynamics. Heat is a quantity whose…
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…
We compare definitions of the internal energy of an open quantum system and strategies to split the internal energy into work and heat contributions as given by four different approaches from autonomous system framework. Our discussion…
The internal energy of individual subsystems is not well defined in interacting quantum systems, leading to ambiguities in the definition of thermodynamic quantities. Applying the Schmidt basis formalism to general bipartite autonomous…
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…
Underlying the classical thermodynamic principles are analogous microscopic laws, arising from the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics. These define quantum thermodynamic variables such as quantum work and heat and characterize the…
We study the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of pure decoherence processes in open quantum systems coupled to a thermal reservoir. We review various definitions of central quantities, such as internal energy, work, heat and entropy…
Recent advances in quantum thermodynamics have been focusing on ever more elementary systems of interest, approaching the limit of a single qubit, with correlations, strong coupling and non-equilibrium environments coming into play. Under…
The first law of thermodynamics restates the law of conservation of energy. It partitions the change in energy of a system into two pieces, heat and work. While there is no ambiguity to define heat and work in classical thermodynamics,…
The development of a self-consistent thermodynamic theory of quantum systems is of fundamental importance for modern physics. Still, despite its essential role in quantum science and technology, there is no unifying formalism for…
Environments in quantum thermodynamics usually take the role of heat baths. These baths are Markovian, weakly coupled to the system, and initialized in a thermal state. Whenever one of these properties is missing, standard quantum…
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…
We consider continuously monitored quantum systems and introduce definitions of work and heat along individual quantum trajectories that are valid for coherent superpositions of energy eigenstates. We use these quantities to extend the…
We provide a characterization of energy in the form of exchanged heat and work between two interacting constituents of a closed, bipartite, correlated quantum system. By defining a binding energy we derive a consistent quantum formulation…
The separation of internal energy into heat and work in quantum thermodynamics is a controversial issue for a long time, and we revisit and solve this problem in this work. It is shown that the Hamiltonian plays dual roles for a quantum…
The consistent definition of the thermodynamic functions of small open quantum systems in contact with an environment in equilibrium with a heat bath has been the subject of many debates in the quantum community. In the present work we…
New exact results about the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of open quantum systems at arbitrary timescales are obtained by considering all possible variations of initial conditions of a system, its environment, and correlations between them.…
Understanding how coherence of quantum systems affects thermodynamic quantities, such as work and heat, is essential for harnessing quantumness effectively in thermal quantum technologies. Here, we study the unique contributions of quantum…
Assigning the variations of internal energy into heat or work contributions is a challenging task due to the fact that these properties are trajectory dependent. A number of proposals have been put forward for open quantum systems following…
In this paper, unambiguous redefinitions of heat and work are presented for quantum thermodynamic systems. We will use genuine reasoning based on which Clausius originally defined work and heat in establishing thermodynamics. The change in…