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We present an analysis of the foundations of the well known Clausius inequality. It is shown that, in general, the inequality is not a logical consequence of the Kelvin-Planck formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. Some thought…
Mesoscopic loop is proposed in many works as possible solid-state quantum bit, i.e. two-state quantum system. The quantum oscillations of resistance and of rectified voltage observed on asymmetric superconducting loops give evidence of the…
It is argued that the discovery of cosmic acceleration could have been anticipated on thermodynamic grounds, namely, the generalized second law and the approach to equilibrium at large scale factor. Therefore, the existence of dark energy…
I use cosmology examples to illustrate that the second law of thermodynamics is not old and tired, but alive and kicking, continuing to stimulate interesting research on really big puzzles. The question "Why is the entropy so low?" (despite…
Quantum electrodynamics under conditions of distinguishability of interacting matter entities, and of controlled actions and back-actions between them, is considered. Such "mesoscopic quantum electrodynamics" is shown to share its dynamical…
Second law of thermodynamics is applied to a few electronic processes. It is seen that the second law of thermodynamics holds good for all except one mentioned here. The classical approach, based on exact equivalence of emission and…
In an abstract setting of a general classical mechanical system as a model for the universe we set up a general formalism for a law behind the second law of thermodynamics, i.e. really for "initial conditions". We propose a unification with…
A version of the second law of thermodynamics states that one cannot lower the energy of an isolated system by a cyclic operation. We prove this law without introducing statistical ensembles and by resorting only to quantum mechanics. We…
Recent papers discussing thermodynamic processes in strongly coupled quantum systems claim a violation of Landauer's principle and imply a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If true, this would have powerful consequences.…
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time. This appears to conflict with the reversible evolution of isolated quantum systems under the Schr\"odinger equation, which preserves…
The phenomenon described by our title should surprise no one. What may be surprising though is how easy it is to produce a quantum system with this feature; moreover, that system is one that is often used for the purpose of showing how…
We elaborate on the existing notion that quantum mechanics is an emergent phenomenon, by presenting a thermodynamical theory that is dual to quantum mechanics. This dual theory is that of classical irreversible thermodynamics. The linear…
In orthodox quantum theory, decoherence is presumed to be caused by observation. In this paper, the idea of replacing observation, as the cause of decoherence, with rules derived from the dynamics of the system is addressed. Such rules…
Local master equations are a widespread tool to model open quantum systems, especially in the context of many-body systems. These equations, however, are believed to lead to thermodynamic anomalies and violation of the laws of…
We establish quantum thermodynamics for open quantum systems weakly coupled to their reservoirs when the system exhibits degeneracies. The first and second law of thermodynamics are derived, as well as a finite-time fluctuation theorem for…
Building on parallels between geometric quantum mechanics and classical mechanics, we explore an alternative basis for quantum thermodynamics that exploits the differential geometry of the underlying state space. We develop both…
We consider a generalisation of thermodynamics that deals with multiple conserved quantities at the level of individual quantum systems. Each conserved quantity, which, importantly, need not commute with the rest, can be extracted and…
Examples are worked out using a new equation proposed in the previous paper to show that it has new physical predictions for mesoscopic systems.
Thermodynamics allows the application of Statistical Mechanics to finite and even small systems. As surface effects cannot be scaled away, one has to be careful with the standard arguments of splitting a system into two or bringing two…
We study the modification of the second law of thermodynamics for a quantum system interacting with a reservoir regarding quantum coherence. The whole system is isolated so that neither energy nor information is lost. It is discovered that…