Related papers: Unified entropy production in finite quantum syste…

Entropy generation in a chemical reaction is analyzed without using the general formalism of non-equilibrium thermodynamics at a level adequate for advanced undergraduates. In a first approach to the problem, the phenomenological kinetic…

We derive the law of entropy non-decrease directly from the Kelvin-Planck principle for simple and compound systems without using the Clausius inequality. A key of the derivation is a new formulation of entropy in terms of work by a Carnot…

Heat conduction is investigated on three levels: equilibrium, Fourier, and Cattaneo. The Fourier level is either the point of departure for investigating the approach to equilibrium or the final stage in the investigation of the approach…

Recently, the fundamental laws of thermodynamics have been reconsidered for small systems. The discovery of the fluctuation relations has spurred theoretical and experimental studies on thermodynamics of systems with few degrees of freedom.…

By computing the local energy expectation values with respect to some local measurement basis we show that for any quantum system there are two fundamentally different contributions: changes in energy that do not alter the local von Neumann…

We evaluate entropy production in a photovoltaic cell that is modeled by four electronic levels resonantly coupled to thermally populated field modes at different temperatures. We use a formalism recently proposed, the so-called multiple…

For stochastic non-equilibrium dynamics like a Langevin equation for a colloidal particle or a master equation for discrete states, entropy production along a single trajectory is studied. It involves both genuine particle entropy and…

Many theoretical expressions of dissipation along non-equilibrium processes have been proposed. However, they have not been fully verified by experiments. Especially for systems strongly interacting with environments the connection between…

Dissipative quantum systems are frequently described within the framework of the so-called "system-plus-reservoir" approach. In this work we assign their description to the Maximum Entropy Formalism and compare the resulting thermodynamic…

The example provided in the comment [arXiv:0803.2241] concerns a situation where the system is initially at negative temperature. It is known that in such cases the Law of Entropy Decrease holds. Nevertheless, this does not challenge the…

The thermodynamic limit of the internal energy and the entropy of the system of quantum interacting particles in random medium is shown to exist under the crucial requirements of stability and temperedness of interactions. The energy turns…

In nature stationary nonequilibrium systems cannot exist on their own, rather they need to be driven from outside in order to keep them away from equilibrium. While the internal mean entropy of such stationary systems is constant, the…

The second law of nonequilibrium thermodynamics within the open system paradigm (a small system coupled to one or multiple baths) is derived. This is done by showing positivity of entropy production for arbitrary Hamiltonian dynamics for a…

We present an exact relationship between the entropy production and the distinguishability of a process from its time-reverse, quantified by the relative entropy between forward and backward states. The relationship is shown to remain valid…

Stochastic entropy production, which quantifies the difference between the probabilities of trajectories of a stochastic dynamics and its time reversals, has a central role in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. In the theory of probability, the…

We prove a lower bound on the relative entropy between two finite-dimensional states in terms of their entropy difference and the dimension of the underlying space. The inequality is tight in the sense that equality can be attained for any…

A pure quantum state can fully describe thermal equilibrium as long as one focuses on local observables. Thermodynamic entropy can also be recovered as the entanglement entropy of small subsystems. When the size of the subsystem increases,…

We systematically explore and show the existence of finite-temperature continuous quantum phase transition (CTQPT) at a critical point, namely, during solidification or melting such that the first-order thermal phase transition is a special…

Observational entropy captures both the intrinsic uncertainty of a thermodynamic state and the lack of knowledge due to coarse-graining. We demonstrate two interpretations of observational entropy, one as the statistical deficiency…

We investigate the basic theoretical issues in the quantum entanglement of particle pairs created from the vacuum in a time-dependent background field or spacetime. Similar to entropy generation from these processes which depends on the…