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Recently Allahverdyan and Nieuwenhuizen (cond-mat/0006404) argued that the second law of thermodynamics may be violated in a quantum system as a "consequence of quantum coherence in the presence of the slightly off-equilibrium nature of the…
Several models of quantum open systems are known at present to violate, according to principles of the standard quantum theory of open systems, the second law of thermodynamics. Here, a new and rather trivial model of another type is…
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…
A.E. Allahverdyan and Th. M. Nieuwenhuizen [1] in their paper "A mathematical theorem as a basis for the second law: Thomson's formulation applied to equilibriium" present a proof of the second law of thermodynamics based on quantum…
Possible application of a result contradicting to the second law of thermodynamics is announced. According to this result the chaotic energy of thermal fluctuation can be transformed in electric energy of direct current in an inhomogeneous…
We describe recent progress towards deriving the Fundamental Laws of thermodynamics (the 0th, 1st and 2nd Law) from nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics in simple, yet physically relevant models. Along the way, we clarify some basic…
Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
The second law of thermodynamics constitutes a fundamental principle of physics, precluding the existence of perpetual motion machines and providing a natural definition of the arrow of time. Its scope extends across virtually all areas of…
In the scientific and engineering literature, the second law of thermodynamics is expressed in terms of the behavior of entropy in reversible and irreversible processes. According to the prevailing statistical mechanics interpretation the…
The field-dependent equilibrium thermodynamics is derived with two methods: either by using the potential formalism either by the statistical method. Therefore, Pontrjagin's extremum principle of control theory is applied to an extended…
Deriving the laws of thermodynamics from a microscopic picture is a central quest of statistical mechanics. This tutorial focuses on the derivation of the first and second law for closed and open quantum systems far from equilibrium, where…
The second law of ordinary thermodynamics and the second law of steady state thermodynamics, as proposed by Oono and Paniconi, are investigated from the microscopic point of view for the open quantum system. Based on the H-theorem of…
Some works have appeared in recent accredited literature considering the possibility of macroscopic violations of the second law in simulated as well as really executed experiments. We argue the inexistence of such violations in experiments…
Recent research on the thermodynamic arrow of time, at the microscopic scale, has questioned the universality of its direction. Theoretical studies showed that quantum correlations can be used to revert the natural heat flow (from the hot…
The second law of thermodynamics places a limitation into which states a system can evolve into. For systems in contact with a heat bath, it can be combined with the law of energy conservation, and it says that a system can only evolve into…
The Carnot statement of the second law of thermodynamics poses an upper limit on the efficiency of all heat engines. Recently, it has been studied whether generic quantum features such as coherence and quantum entanglement could allow for…
The purpose of this work is to discuss recent progress in deriving the fundamental laws of thermodynamics (0th, 1st and 2nd-law) from nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. Basic thermodynamic notions are clarified and different…
Even though the second law of thermodynamics holds the supreme position among the laws of nature, as stated by many distinguished scientists, notably Eddington and Einstein, its position appears to be also quite peculiar. Given the atomic…
In textbooks on statistical mechanics, one finds often arguments based on classical mechanics, phase space and ergodicity in order to justify the second law of thermodynamics. However, the basic equations of motion of classical mechanics…