The resource theory of thermal operations explains the state transformations that are possible in a very specific thermodynamic setting: there is only one thermal bath, auxiliary systems can only be in the corresponding thermal state (free states), and the interaction must commute with the free Hamiltonian (free operation). In this paper we study the mildest deviation: the reservoir particles are subject to inhomogeneities, either in the local temperature (introducing resource states) or in the local Hamiltonian (generating a resource operation). For small inhomogeneities, the two models generate the same channel and thus the same state transformations. However, their thermodynamics is significantly different when it comes to work generation or to the interpretation of the ``second laws of thermal operations.''
The resource theory of thermal operations explains the state transformations that are possible in a very specific thermodynamic setting: there is only one thermal bath, auxiliary systems can only be in the corresponding thermal state (free states), and the interaction must commute with the free Hamiltonian (free operation). In this paper we study the mildest deviation: the reservoir particles are subject to inhomogeneities, either in the local temperature (introducing resource states) or in the local Hamiltonian (generating a resource operation). For small inhomogeneities, the two models generate the same channel and thus the same state transformations. However, their thermodynamics is significantly different when it comes to work generation or to the interpretation of the ``second laws of thermal operations.''
In the resource theory of thermodynamics, the decrease of the free energy based on von Neumann entropy is not a sufficient condition to determine free evolution. Rather, a whole family of generalised free energies Fα must be monotonically decreasing. We study the resilience of this result to relaxations of the framework. We use a toy collisional model, in which the deviations from the ideal situation can be described as arising from inhomogeneities of local fields or temperatures. For any small amount of perturbation, we find that there exist initial states such that both single-shot and averaged values of Fα do not decrease monotonically for all α>0. A geometric representation accounts for the observed behavior in a graphic way.
The second law of thermodynamics places constraints on state transformations. It applies to systems composed of many particles, however, we are seeing that one can formulate laws of thermodynamics when only a small number of particles are interacting with a heat bath. Is there a second law of thermodynamics in this regime? Here, we find that for processes which are approximately cyclic, the second law for microscopic systems takes on a different form compared to the macroscopic scale, imposing not just one constraint on state transformations, but an entire family of constraints. We find a family of free energies which generalize the traditional one, and show that they can never increase. The ordinary second law relates to one of these, with the remainder imposing additional constraints on thermodynamic transitions. We find three regimes which determine which family of second laws govern state transitions, depending on how cyclic the process is. In one regime one can cause an apparent violation of the usual second law, through a process of embezzling work from a large system which remains arbitrarily close to its original state. These second laws are relevant for small systems, and also apply to individual macroscopic systems interacting via long-range interactions. By making precise the definition of thermal operations, the laws of thermodynamics are unified in this framework, with the first law defining the class of operations, the zeroth law emerging as an equivalence relation between thermal states, and the remaining laws being monotonicity of our generalized free energies.
Thermal engines have been one of the principal topics of thermodynamics ever since its beginning. Today, in the era of the second quantum revolution, although the thermal processes in constant temperatures are relatively well understood in the language of resource theories, a framework to describe thermal engines is still in its infancy. In this work we formalize the resource theory of engines, initially put forward in~\cite{KAMIL}, and define such quantities as engine efficiency. Then, we turn to a detailed study of thermal engines based on free operations arising from the resource theory of athermality under different restrictions: thermal operation, semilocal thermal operations and local thermal operation with classical communication. In order to provide analytic lower bounds for thermal engine operation we construct tree-states -- free states, which can be obtained from Gibbs state in simple protocol consisting solely of two-level operations. Furthermore, we derive a full description of the engine based on semilocal thermal operations by describing free states, faithful monotones and catalytic advantages.
Several recent results on thermodynamics have been obtained using the tools of quantum information theory and resource theories. So far, the resource theories utilized to describe thermodynamics have assumed the existence of an infinite thermal reservoir, by declaring that thermal states at some background temperature come for free. Here, we propose a resource theory of quantum thermodynamics without a background temperature, so that no states at all come for free. We apply this resource theory to the case of many noninteracting systems and show that all quantum states are classified by their entropy and average energy, even arbitrarily far away from equilibrium. This implies that thermodynamics takes place in a two-dimensional convex set that we call the energy-entropy diagram. The answers to many resource-theoretic questions about thermodynamics can be read off from this diagram, such as the efficiency of a heat engine consisting of finite reservoirs, or the rate of conversion between two states. This allows us to consider a resource theory which puts work and heat on an equal footing, and serves as a model for other resource theories.
Thermal engines have been one of the principal topics of thermodynamics ever since its beginning. Today, in the era of the second quantum revolution, although the thermal processes in constant temperatures are relatively well understood in the language of resource theories, a framework to describe thermal engines is still in its infancy. In this work we formalize the resource theory of engines, initially put forward in [Quantum 8, 1222 (2024)], and define such quantities as engine efficiency. Then we turn to a detailed study of thermal engines based on free operations arising from the resource theory of athermality under different restrictions: thermal operation, semilocal thermal operations, and local thermal operation with classical communication. In order to provide analytic lower bounds for thermal engine operation we construct tree states—free states which can be obtained from Gibbs state in simple protocol consisting solely of two-level operations. Furthermore, we derive a full description of the engine based on semilocal thermal operations by describing free states, faithful monotones, and catalytic advantages.
In this paper we aim to push the analogy between thermodynamics and quantum resource theories one step further. Previous inspirations were based predominantly on thermodynamic considerations concerning scenarios with a single heat bath, neglecting an important part of thermodynamics that studies heat engines operating between two baths at different temperatures. Here, we investigate the performance of resource engines, which replace the access to two heat baths at different temperatures with two arbitrary constraints on state transformations. The idea is to imitate the action of a two–stroke heat engine, where the system is sent to two agents (Alice and Bob) in turns, and they can transform it using their constrained sets of free operations. We raise and address several questions, including whether or not a resource engine can generate a full set of quantum operations or all possible state transformations, and how many strokes are needed for that. We also explain how the resource engine picture provides a natural way to fuse two or more resource theories, and we discuss in detail the fusion of two resource theories of thermodynamics with two different temperatures, and two resource theories of coherence with respect to two different bases.