相关论文: A macroscopic object passively cooled into its qua…
The advent of laser cooling techniques revolutionized the study of many atomic-scale systems. This has fueled progress towards quantum computers by preparing trapped ions in their motional ground state, and generating new states of matter…
Designing cooling protocols is believed to require knowledge of the system spectrum. In contrast, cooling in nature occurs whenever the system is coupled to a cold bath. How does nature know how to cool? A natural cold bath can be mimicked…
The motion of a mechanical object -- even a human-sized object -- should be governed by the rules of quantum mechanics. Coaxing them into a quantum state is, however, difficult: the thermal environment masks any quantum signature of the…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
Quantum physics emerge and develop as temperature is reduced. Although mesoscopic electrical circuits constitute an outstanding platform to explore quantum behavior, the challenge in cooling the electrons impedes their potential. The strong…
Classical thermodynamics is unrivalled in its range of applications and relevance to everyday life. It enables a description of complex systems, made up of microscopic particles, in terms of a small number of macroscopic quantities, such as…
Quantum physics is a linear theory, so it is somewhat puzzling that it can underlie very complex systems such as digital computers and life. This paper investigates how this is possible. Physically, such complex systems are necessarily…
Engines are systems and devices that convert one form of energy into another, typically into a more useful form that can perform work. In the classical setup, physical, chemical, and biological engines largely involve the conversion of heat…
While ultimately they are described by quantum mechanics, macroscopic mechanical systems are nevertheless observed to follow the trajectories predicted by classical mechanics. Hence, in the regime defining macroscopic physics, the…
Macroscopic quantum phenomena refer to quantum features in objects of `large' sizes, systems with many components or degrees of freedom, organized in ways where they can be identified as macroscopic objects. This emerging field is ushered…
For the purpose of understanding the quantum behavior such as quantum decoherence, fluctuations, dissipation, entanglement and teleportation of a mesoscopic or macroscopic object interacting with a general environment, we derive here a set…
The aim of this book chapter is to indicate how quantum phenomena are affecting the operation of microscopic thermal machines, such as engines and refrigerators. As converting heat to work is one of the fundamental concerns in…
We report on a microscopic theory of quantum friction. Our approach investigates the interplay between the dispersive response and the relative center-of-mass motion of two ground-state atoms. This coupling yields a quantum force, which can…
Quantum theory is extremely successful in explaining most physical phenomena, and is not contradicted by any experiment. Yet, the theory has many puzzling features : the occurrence of probabilities, the unclear distinction between the…
A novel two-tiered organization of the microworld is presented, in which only the fundamental quantum fields of the standard model of particle physics (electrons, photons, quarks, etc.) are true quantum waves, exhibiting linear…
Conventional techniques for laser cooling, by coherent scattering off of internal states or through an optical cavity mode, have so far proved inefficient on mechanical oscillators heavier than a few nanograms. That is because larger…
Using very general and well established ideas of the statistical physics of macroscopic bodies, that is, of those composed of many degrees of freedom, we show how classical behavior of the center of mass motion arises from a fully quantum…
A single mechanism, endemic to the standard model of physics, is proposed to explain wavefunction collapse, classical motion, dissipation, equilibration, and the transition from pure quantum mechanics through open system decoherence to the…
Quantum thermodynamics aims at extending standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to systems with sizes well below the thermodynamic limit. A rapidly evolving research field, which promises to change our understanding…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…