Related papers: Entropy and Temperature of a Quantum Carnot Engine
The heat engine, a machine that extracts useful work from thermal sources, is one of the basic theoretical constructs and fundamental applications of classical thermodynamics. The classical description of a heat engine does not include…
A microscopic understanding of the thermodynamic entropy in quantum systems has been a mystery ever since the invention of quantum mechanics. In classical physics, this entropy is believed to be the logarithm of the volume of phase space…
The thermodynamic entropy of an isolated system is given by its von Neumann entropy. Over the last few years, there is an intense activity to understand thermodynamic entropy from the principles of quantum mechanics. More specifically, is…
The introduction of the quantum analogue of a Carnot engine based on a bath comprising of particles with a small amount of coherence initiated an active line of research on the harnessing of different quantum resources for the enhancement…
We derive a bound on the efficiency of thermal engines that can be sharper than Carnot's limit. It is a function of statistical correlations between the engine internal state and Hamiltonian, can be saturated even in finite-time cycles, and…
The unavoidable interaction of a quantum system with its surrounding (bath) is not always detrimental for quantum properties. For instance, under some specific conditions (that we identify as indistinguishability), a many-body system can…
We consider a class of quantum heat engines consisting of two subsystems interacting via a unitary transformation and coupled to two separate baths at different temperatures $T_h > T_c$. The purpose of the engine is to extract work due to…
We discuss whether, and under which conditions, it is possible to realize a heat engine simply by dynamically modulating the couplings between the quantum working medium and thermal reservoirs. For that purpose, we consider the paradigmatic…
Understanding thermodynamics far from equilibrium at the quantum scale remains a fundamental challenge, particularly in the presence of quantum coherence. Here we develop a first-principles framework for nonequilibrium quantum…
Real quantum heat engines lack the separation of time and length scales that is characteristic for classical engines. They must be understood as open quantum systems in non-equilibrium with time-controlled coupling to thermal reservoirs as…
A model for the thermodynamics of a quantum heat bath is introduced. Under the assumption that the bath molecules have finitely many degrees of freedom and are weakly interacting, we present a general derivation of the equation of state of…
Thermal management is a key challenge, both globally and microscopically in integrated circuits and quantum technologies. The associated heat flow $I_Q$ has been understood since the advent of thermodynamics by a process of elimination,…
We introduce a quantum heat engine performing an Otto cycle by using the thermal properties of the quantum vacuum. Since Hawking and Unruh, it has been established that the vacuum space, either near a black hole or for an accelerated…
The laws of thermodynamics put limits to the efficiencies of thermal machines. Analogues of these laws are now established for quantum engines weakly and passively coupled to the environment providing a framework to find improvements to…
In this paper we investigate the relationship between the efficiency of a cyclic quantum heat engine with the Hilbert space dimension of the thermal baths. By means of a general inequality, we show that the Carnot efficiency can be obtained…
In this review the debated rapport between thermodynamics and quantum mechanics is addressed in the framework of the theory of periodically-driven/controlled quantum-thermodynamic machines. The basic model studied here is that of a…
A cyclic thermodynamic heat engine runs most efficiently if it is reversible. Carnot constructed such a reversible heat engine by combining adiabatic and isothermal processes for a system containing an ideal gas. Here, we present an example…
We suggest alternative quantum Otto engines, using heat bath algorithmic cooling with partner pairing algorithm instead of isochoric cooling. Liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance systems in one entropy sink are considered as working…
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…
We study the temporal rate of variations of the von Neumann entropy in an open quantum system which interacts with a bath. We show that for almost all initial states of the bath and the system, the time-average of the rate of entropy change…