Related papers: Adaiabtic theorems and reversible isothermal proce…
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…
The resource theory of thermal operations, an established model for small-scale thermodynamics, provides an extension of equilibrium thermodynamics to nonequilibrium situations. On a lattice of any dimension with any translation-invariant…
Quantum mechanically, a driving process is expected to be reversible in the quasistatic limit, also known as the adiabatic theorem. This statement stands in opposition to classical mechanics, where a mix of regular and chaotic dynamics…
Thermodynamics plays an important role both in the foundations of physics and in technological applications. An operational perspective adopted in recent years is to formulate it as a quantum resource theory. At the core of this theory is…
Unconventional cycles provide a useful didactic resource to discuss the second law of thermodynamics applied to thermal motors and their efficiency. In most cases they involve a negative slope, linear process that presents an adiabatic…
The emergence of irreversibility in physical processes, despite the fundamentally reversible nature of quantum mechanics, remains an open question in physics. This thesis explores the intricate relationship between quantum mechanics and…
Quantum open systems evolve according to completely positive, trace preserving maps acting on the density operator, which can equivalently be unraveled in term of so-called quantum trajectories. These stochastic sequences of pure states…
When a small dynamical system that is initially in contact with a heat bath is detached from this heat bath and then caused to undergo a quasi-static adiabatic processes, the statistical distribution of the system's energy differs from that…
An adiabatic transition between two equilibrium states corresponding to different stiffnesses in an infinite chain of particles is studied. Initially, the chain particles have random displacements and random velocities corresponding to a…
An intriguing phenomenon in non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics is the asymmetry of thermal processes. Relaxation to thermal equilibrium is the most important dissipative process, being a key concept for the design of heat engines and…
This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic…
The thermodynamics of quantum systems coupled to periodically modulated heat baths and work reservoirs is developed. By identifying affinities and fluxes, the first and second law are formulated consistently. In the linear response regime,…
Thermodynamic relations are derived from first principles of mechanics for non-equilibrium processes. Since the key role herein is played by the law of increase of entropy, the latter is analyzed at first. It is shown that its derivation…
We review and investigate the general theory of thermodynamics of computation, and derive the fundamental inequalities that set the lower bounds of the work requirement and the heat emission during a computation. These inequalities…
We set up a framework for quantum stochastic thermodynamics based solely on experimentally controllable, but otherwise arbitrary interventions at discrete times. Using standard assumptions about the system-bath dynamics and insights from…
We obtain macroscopic isothermal thermodynamic transformations by space-time scalings of a microscopic Hamiltonian dynamics in contact with a heat bath. The microscopic dynamics is given by a chain of anharmonic oscillators subject to a…
The proper definition of entropy is fundamental to the relationship between statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. It also plays a major role in the recent debate about the validity of the concept of negative temperature. In this paper,…
In this article a definition of reversible processes in terms of differences in intensive Thermodynamics properties (Affinities) is proposed. This definition makes it possible to both define reversible processes before introducing the…
We examine stochastic processes that are used to model nonequilibrium processes (e.g, pulling RNA or dragging colloids) and so deliberately violate detailed balance. We argue that by combining an information-theoretic measure of…
This thesis is devoted to the theoretical study of slow thermodynamic processes in non-equilibrium stochastic systems. Its main result is a physically and mathematically consistent construction of relevant thermodynamic quantities in the…