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Related papers: Work extraction in the spin-boson model

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Work can be extracted from a single bath beyond the limit set by the second law by performing measurement on the system and utilising the acquired information. As an example we studied a Brownian particle confined in a two dimensional…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-19 P. S. Pal , Shubhashis Rana , Arnab Saha , A. M. Jayannavar

We consider locally thermal states (for two qubits) with certain amount of quantum entanglement present between them. Unlike previous protocols we show how work can be extracted by performing local unitary operations on this state by…

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-14 Anna Gabetti , Fabrizio Dolcini , Davide Girolami

Heat is a physical manifestation of entropy, where the removal of entropy from a thermal energy reservoir permits the conversion of heat into work. This entropy transfer is facilitated by the cold thermal energy reservoir in typical heat…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-11-12 Liam Judd McClelland

This paper considers work extraction from a quantum system to a work storage system (or weight) following reference [1]. An alternative approach is here developed that relies on the comparison of subspace dimensions without a need to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-04-07 J. Gemmer , J. Anders

Measurement and feedback allows an external agent to extract work from a system in contact with a single thermal bath. The maximum amount of work that can be extracted in a single measurement and the corresponding feedback loop is given by…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2024-01-19 L. Dinis , J. M. R. Parrondo

Constraints on work extraction are fundamental to our operational understanding of the thermodynamics of both classical and quantum systems. In the quantum setting, finite-time control operations typically generate coherence in the…

The stationary state of a quantum particle strongly coupled to a quantum thermal bath is known to be non-gibbsian, due to entanglement with the bath. For harmonic potentials, where the system can be described by effective temperatures,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-10-31 A. E. Allahverdyan , Th. M. Nieuwenhuizen

Thomson's formulation of the second law - no work can be extracted from a system coupled to a bath through a cyclic process - is believed to be a fundamental principle of nature. For the equilibrium situation a simple proof is presented,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-07 Armen E. Allahverdyan , Roger Balian , Theo M. Nieuwenhuizen

A suitable way of quantifying work for microscopic quantum systems has been constantly debated in the field of quantum thermodynamics. One natural approach is to measure the average increase in energy of an ancillary system, called the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-05-16 Nelly Huei Ying Ng , Mischa Woods , Stephanie Wehner

We show that coupled two level systems like qubits studied in quantum information can be used as a thermodynamic machine. At least three qubits or spins are necessary and arranged in a chain. The system is interfaced between two split baths…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-13 M. J. Henrich , M. Michel , G. Mahler

The second law of thermodynamics uses change in free energy of macroscopic systems to set a bound on performed work. Ergotropy plays a similar role in microscopic scenarios, and is defined as the maximum amount of energy that can be…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-10-19 Tanmoy Biswas , Marcin Łobejko , Paweł Mazurek , Konrad Jałowiecki , Michał Horodecki

We introduce heat engines working in the nano-regime that allow to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. We show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-06-11 Federico Cerisola , Facundo Sapienza , Augusto Roncaglia

We show that frequent nondemolition measurements of a quantum system immersed in a thermal bath allow the extraction of work in a closed cycle from the system-bath interaction (correlation) energy, a hitherto unexploited work resource. It…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-08-19 David Gelbwaser-Klimovsky , Noam Erez , Robert Alicki , Gershon Kurizki

Dynamical decoupling is a technique aimed at suppressing the interaction between a quantum system and its environment by applying frequent unitary operations on the system alone. In the present paper, we analytically study the dynamical…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-08-15 Alexander Hahn , Daniel Burgarth , Davide Lonigro

We consider the task of extracting work from quantum systems in the resource theory perspective of thermodynamics, where free states are arbitrary thermal states, and allowed operations are energy conserving unitary transformations. Taking…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-02-13 Paul Skrzypczyk , Anthony J. Short , Sandu Popescu

The work content of non-equilibrium systems in relation to a heat bath is often analyzed in terms of expectation values of an underlying random work variable. However, we show that when optimizing the expectation value of the extracted…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-03-19 Johan Aberg

Extracting useful work from quantum systems is a fundamental problem in quantum thermodynamics. In scenarios where rapid protocols are desired -- whether due to practical constraints or deliberate design choices -- a fundamental trade-off…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-23 Shoki Sugimoto , Takahiro Sagawa , Ryusuke Hamazaki

A new thermodynamic inequality is derived which leads to the maximum work that can be extracted from multi-heat baths with the assistance of discrete quantum feedback control. The maximum work is determined by the free-energy difference and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 Takahiro Sagawa , Masahito Ueda

With the progress of nano-technology, thermodynamics also has to be scaled down, calling for specific protocols to extract and measure work. Usually, such protocols involve the action of an external, classical field (the battery) of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-08-09 Cyril Elouard , Maxime Richard , Alexia Auffèves