2000/06/26 by A. E. Allahverdyan, Theo M. Nieuwenhuizen, Th. M. Nieuwenhuizen · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Anharmonicity #Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) #Harmonic oscillator #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum discord #Quantum entanglement #Quantum mechanics #Quantum system #Quantum thermodynamics #Stationary state #Statistical physics #Thermal #Thermal equilibrium #Thermodynamics #Work (physics) #cond-mat.stat-mech #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.1799
5 pages, revtex, 0 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett
arxiv created 2000/06/26 · openalex publication_date 2000/08/28 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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, thermodynamic relations are shown to take a generalized Gibbsian form that may violate the Clausius inequality. For the weakly anharmonic case, a Fokker-Planck-type description is constructed. It is shown that then work can be extracted from the bath by cyclic variation of a parameter. These apparent violations of the second law are the consequence of quantum coherence in the presence of the slightly off-equilibrium nature of the bath.