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Dr. Tan Van Vu

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Department of Physics, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan
Interests: stochastic thermodynamics; quantum thermodynamics; quantum information theory

Prof. Dr. Keiji Saito

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Guest Editor

Department of Physics, Keio University, Hiyoshi 3-14-1, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan
Interests: statistical physics; nonequilibrium physics; information physics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our understanding of fluctuations in small nonequilibrium systems has been significantly advanced owing to the development of stochastic and quantum thermodynamics. One of the prominent results in recent years is the thermodynamic uncertainty relation (TUR), which indicates a trade-off relation between the precision of currents and thermodynamic cost quantified via irreversible entropy production. Initially derived for stationary Markov processes in the linear response regime, it has now been generalized for generic initial states under arbitrary time-dependent driving and also extended to the quantum regime, including quantum effects such as quantum coherence. The TUR is not only theoretically important (e.g., implications on the trade-off between the power and efficiency of steady-state heat engines, and the extent of anomalous diffusion), but it has also found a practical application in the thermodynamic inference of dissipation.

Given the importance and significance of the TUR, this Special Issue aims at providing a focus on the TUR from both theoretical and experimental aspects, ranging from biophysics to classical and quantum physics. This includes but is not limited to exploring generalizations to other dynamics, novel TUR-like tradeoffs between precision and cost, theoretical and practical applications, and quantum effects.

Dr. Tan Van Vu
Prof. Dr. Keiji Saito
Guest Editors

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Research

30 pages, 1352 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Work Fluctuations in Ergotropic Heat Engines

by Giovanni Chesi, Chiara Macchiavello and Massimiliano Federico Sacchi

Entropy 2023, 25(11), 1528; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25111528 - 9 Nov 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1275

Abstract

We study the work fluctuations in ergotropic heat engines, namely two-stroke quantum Otto engines where the work stroke is designed to extract the ergotropy (the maximum amount of work by a cyclic unitary evolution) from a couple of quantum systems at canonical equilibrium at two different temperatures, whereas the heat stroke thermalizes back the systems to their respective reservoirs. We provide an exhaustive study for the case of two qutrits whose energy levels are equally spaced at two different frequencies by deriving the complete work statistics. By varying the values of temperatures and frequencies, only three kinds of optimal unitary strokes are found: the swap operator

U_{1}

, an idle swap

U_{2}

(where one of the qutrits is regarded as an effective qubit), and a non-trivial permutation of energy eigenstates

U_{3}

, which indeed corresponds to the composition of the two previous unitaries, namely

U_{3} = U_{2} U_{1}

. While

U_{1}

and

U_{2}

are Hermitian (and hence involutions),

U_{3}

is not. This point has an impact on the thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs), which bound the signal-to-noise ratio of the extracted work in terms of the entropy production. In fact, we show that all TURs derived from a strong detailed fluctuation theorem are violated by the transformation

U_{3}

. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relations)

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17 pages, 542 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Stochastic Thermodynamics of Multiple Co-Evolving Systems—Beyond Multipartite Processes

by Farita Tasnim and David H. Wolpert

Entropy 2023, 25(7), 1078; https://doi.org/10.3390/e25071078 - 17 Jul 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2184

Abstract

Many dynamical systems consist of multiple, co-evolving subsystems (i.e., they have multiple degrees of freedom). Often, the dynamics of one or more of these subsystems will not directly depend on the state of some other subsystems, resulting in a network of dependencies governing the dynamics. How does this dependency network affect the full system’s thermodynamics? Prior studies on the stochastic thermodynamics of multipartite processes have addressed this question by assuming that, in addition to the constraints of the dependency network, only one subsystem is allowed to change state at a time. However, in many real systems, such as chemical reaction networks or electronic circuits, multiple subsystems can—or must—change state together. Here, we investigate the thermodynamics of such composite processes, in which multiple subsystems are allowed to change state simultaneously. We first present new, strictly positive lower bounds on entropy production in composite processes. We then present thermodynamic uncertainty relations for information flows in composite processes. We end with strengthened speed limits for composite processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relations)

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