Potts, Patrick

Date:   Thursday, May 27, 2021
Time:   10:00
Place:   scheduled Zoom meeting
Host:    Klaus Ensslin

Quantum Thermodynamics - Probabilistically violating the laws of thermodynamics

Patrick Potts
University of Basel

The field of quantum thermodynamics investigates heat, work, entropy, temperature, and related concepts in the quantum regime. In the macroscopic regime, the theory of thermodynamics was a driving force in the industrial revolution and enabled technologies such as steam engines and refrigerators which changed our daily life. A key aspect of thermodynamics is that it provides very general rules that physical systems must obey, i.e., it provides a map of what is possible. In the quantum regime, understanding concepts such as heat, work, and entropy promises to provide a similar map of what is possible. This may have a large impact on emerging nano- and quantum technologies. In this talk, I will introduce some of the challenges that the laws of thermodynamics face at the nanoscale, where fluctuations become important. In particular, while these laws still hold for average values, they may be violated in single experimental runs. For the second law, this occurs already in classical systems. For the first law, this happens in quantum systems due to the peculiar role of the observer. I will further introduce the role of information in thermodynamics, which needs to be incorporated in a thermodynamic description of nanoscale devices.