Lostaglio Matteo, Jennings David, Rudolph Terry
Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Nat Commun. 2015 Mar 10;6:6383. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7383.
Recent studies have developed fundamental limitations on nanoscale thermodynamics, in terms of a set of independent free energy relations. Here we show that free energy relations cannot properly describe quantum coherence in thermodynamic processes. By casting time-asymmetry as a quantifiable, fundamental resource of a quantum state, we arrive at an additional, independent set of thermodynamic constraints that naturally extend the existing ones. These asymmetry relations reveal that the traditional Szilárd engine argument does not extend automatically to quantum coherences, but instead only relational coherences in a multipartite scenario can contribute to thermodynamic work. We find that coherence transformations are always irreversible. Our results also reveal additional structural parallels between thermodynamics and the theory of entanglement.
近期的研究在一组独立的自由能关系方面揭示了纳米尺度热力学的基本局限性。在此我们表明，自由能关系无法恰当地描述热力学过程中的量子相干性。通过将时间不对称性视为量子态的一种可量化的基本资源，我们得出了一组额外的、独立的热力学约束条件，这些条件自然地扩展了现有的约束条件。这些不对称关系表明，传统的齐拉德引擎论点并不能自动扩展到量子相干性，而是只有在多方场景中的关联相干性才能对热力学功有所贡献。我们发现相干变换总是不可逆的。我们的结果还揭示了热力学与纠缠理论之间额外的结构相似性。
