2011/11/30 by Michał Horodecki, Jonathan Oppenheim · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms3059
published as Nature Communications 4, 2059 (2013) · Final, published version
arxiv created 2014/10/25 · arxiv updated 2014/10/28
The relationship between thermodynamics and statistical physics is valid in the thermodynamic limit - when the number of particles becomes very large. Here, we study thermodynamics in the opposite regime - at both the nano scale, and when quantum effects become important. Applying results from quantum information theory we construct a theory of thermodynamics in these limits. We derive general criteria for thermodynamical state transformations, and as special cases, find two free energies: one that quantifies the deterministically extractable work from a small system in contact with a heat bath, and the other that quantifies the reverse process. We find that there are fundamental limitations on work extraction from nonequilibrium states, owing to finite size effects and quantum coherences. This implies that thermodynamical transitions are generically irreversible at this scale. As one application of these methods, we analyse the efficiency of small heat engines and find that they are irreversible during the adiabatic stages of the cycle.