Related papers: The Energy-Entropy Principle
It is a common view in philosophy of physics that thermodynamics is a non-fundamental theory. This is motivated in particular by the fact that thermodynamics is considered to be a paradigmatic example for a theory that can be reduced to…
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…
Underlying the classical thermodynamic principles are analogous microscopic laws, arising from the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics. These define quantum thermodynamic variables such as quantum work and heat and characterize the…
Building on the fundamental equation, this study revisits key thermodynamic concepts in a cohesive and innovative manner. It demonstrates the consistency of thermodynamic theory while addressing and clarifying common misconceptions and…
Quantum thermodynamics has emerged as a central field for understanding how energy conversion processes occur in microscopic systems. In these systems, effects such as coherence, entanglement, and non-Markovianity play key roles. In this…
We demonstrate that irreversibility arises from the principle of microscopic reversibility and the presence of memory in the time evolution of a single copy of a system driven by a protocol. We introduce microscopic reversibility by using…
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…
Entropy is the distinguishing and most important concept of our efforts to understand and regularize our observations of a very large class of natural phenomena, and yet, it is one of the most contentious concepts of physics. In this…
The separation of internal energy into heat and work in quantum thermodynamics is a controversial issue for a long time, and we revisit and solve this problem in this work. It is shown that the Hamiltonian plays dual roles for a quantum…
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…
Thermodynamics and information have intricate inter-relations. The justification of the fact that information is physical, is done by inter-linking information and thermodynamics - through Landauer's principle. This modern approach towards…
We introduce an ergotropy-based formulation of quantum thermodynamics, which provides a strong connection between average heat and von Neumann entropy. By adopting this formulation, we can reinterpret the infinitesimal average heat in terms…
This work formulates and gives grounds for general principles and theorems that question the energy function doctrine and its quantum version as a genuine law of nature without borders of adequacy. The emphasis is on the domain where the…
In a companion article it was shown in a certain precise sense that, for any thermodynamical theory that respects the Kelvin-Planck Second Law, the Hahn-Banach Theorem immediately ensures the existence of a pair of continuous functions of…
Considering an entropy-based division of energy transferred into heat and work, we develop an alternative theoretical framework for the thermodynamic analysis of two-level systems. When comparing these results with those obtained under the…
A generally relativistic theory of thermodynamics is developed, based on four main physical principles: heat is a local form of energy, therefore described by a thermal energy tensor; conservation of mass, equivalent to conservation of…
Accurately describing work extraction from a quantum system is a central objective for the extension of thermodynamics to individual quantum systems. The concepts of work and heat are surprisingly subtle when generalizations are made to…
The physical impossibility of heat transfer under isothermal conditions implies that the classical expression for the entropy of the ideal gas may not be compatible with the internal energy of the gas itself. A corrected expression of the…
Recent advances in quantum thermodynamics have been focusing on ever more elementary systems of interest, approaching the limit of a single qubit, with correlations, strong coupling and non-equilibrium environments coming into play. Under…
There are some misnomers and misconceptions about what is heat and what is work; the recognition of heat and work is even more difficult when it comes to categorize energy as heat or work. Since both heat and work are energy the…