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A fluctuation theorem for the nonequilibrium entropy production in quantum phase space is derived, which enables the consistent thermodynamic description of arbitrary quantum systems, open and closed. The new treatment naturally generalizes…
Starting from the most general formulation of stochastic thermodynamics---i.e. a thermodynamically consistent nonautonomous stochastic dynamics describing systems in contact with several reservoirs---, we define a procedure to identify the…
After the justification of the maximum entropy approach for equilibrium thermodynamic system, and of a maximum path entropy algorithm for nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems by virtue of the principle of virtual work, we present in this…
Extremal principles can generally be divided into two rather distinct classes. There are, on the one hand side, formulations based on the Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics, respectively, dealing with time dependent problems, but…
Entropy might be a not well defined concept if the system can undergo transformations involving stationary nonequilibria. It might be analogous to the heat content (once called ``caloric'') in transformations that are not isochoric (i.e.…
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics has shown its applicability in a wide variety of different situations pertaining to fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. As successful as it is, however, its current formulation…
Several results of black holes thermodynamics can be considered as firmly founded and formulated in a very general manner. From this starting point we analyse in which way these results may give us the opportunity to gain a better…
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…
We revisit the concavity property of the thermodynamic entropy in order to formulate a general proof of the minimum energy principle as well as of other equivalent extremum principles that are valid for thermodynamic potentials and…
We define the entropy operator as the negative of the logarithm of the density matrix, give a prescription for extracting its thermodynamically measurable part, and discuss its dynamics. For an isolated system we derive the first, second…
For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…
The deep connection between entropy and information is discussed in terms of both classical and quantum physics. The mechanism of information transfer between systems via entanglement is explored in the context of decoherence theory. The…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
We introduce a natural way of visualizing the entropy production in heat transfer processes between a system and a thermal reservoir. This representation is particularly useful to highlight the asymmetric character of the heating and…
The positivity conditions of the relative entropy between two thermal equilibrium states $\hat{\rho}_1$ and $\hat{\rho}_2$ are used to obtain upper and lower bounds for the subtraction of their entropies, the Helmholtz potential and the…
In his ninth memoir Clausius summarizes the two principles of thermodynamics as follows: "The whole mechanical theory of heat rests on two fundamental theorems: that of equivalence of heat and work, and that of equivalence of…
A simple and effective approach to thermodynamics is suggested, which solves the major difficulties in the traditional presentation of the subject. The internal energy is introduced from the behavior of deformable bodies, whereas the…
The second law of classical thermodynamics, based on the positivity of the entropy production, only holds for deterministic processes. Therefore the Second Law in stochastic quantum thermodynamics may not hold. By making a fundamental…
Small thermodynamic systems exhibit peculiar behavior different from that observed in long-scale systems. Non-equilibrium processes taking place in those systems are strongly influenced by the presence of fluctuations which can be large.…