Quantum thermodynamics in a single-electron box

A demonic being, introduced by Maxwell, to miraculously create thermal non-equilibrium and violate the Second law of thermodynamics, has been among the most intriguing and elusive wishful concepts for over 150 years. Maxwell and his followers focused on 'effortless gating' a molecule at a time, but overlooked simultaneous interference of other chaotic molecules, while the demon exorcists tried to justify impossible processes with misplaced 'compensations' by work of measureme...

It is demonstrated that Maxwell's demon can be used to allow a machine to extract energy from a heat bath by use of information that is processed by the demon at a remote location. The model proposed here effectively replaces transmission of energy by transmission of information. For that we use a feedback protocol that enables a net gain by stimulating emission in selected fluctuations around thermal equilibrium. We estimate the down conversion rate and the efficiency of ene...

In this article, we introduce two kinds of Fluctuation Theorems (FT) containing information for autonomous Maxwell's demon-assisted machines. Using Jensen's Inequality, we obtain Landauer's principle formulation of the second law for the whole process of the machine. Finally we make use of our results to analyze a new information device. \pacs{05.70.Ln, 05.40.-a, 89.70.Cf}

Recently Sagawa and Ueda [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 080403 (2008)] derived a bound on the work that can be extracted from a quantum system with the use of feedback control. They left open the question of whether this bound could be achieved for every measurement that could be made by the controller. We show that it can, and that this follows straightforwardly from recent work on Maxwell's demon by Alicki et al. [Open Syst. Inform. Dynam. 11, 205 (2004)], for both discrete and con...

We propose a quantum analog of the internal combustion engine used in most cars. Specifically, we study how to implement the Otto-type quantum heat engine (QHE) with the assistance of a Maxwell's demon. Three steps are required: thermalization, quantum measurement, and quantum feedback controlled by the Maxwell demon. We derive the positive-work condition of this composite QHE. Our QHE can be constructed using superconducting quantum circuits. We explicitly demonstrate the es...

It is generally accepted, following Landauer and Bennett, that the process of measurement involves no minimum entropy cost, but the erasure of information in resetting the memory register of a computer to zero requires dissipating heat into the environment. This thesis has been challenged recently in a two-part article by Earman and Norton. I review some relevant observations in the thermodynamics of computation and argue that Earman and Norton are mistaken: there is in princ...

Thermodynamics of quantum systems and quantum thermal machines are rapidly developing fields, which have already delivered several promising results, as well as raised many intriguing questions. Many-body quantum machines present new opportunities stemming from many-body effects. At the same time, they pose new challenges related to many-body physics. In this short review we discuss some of the recent developments on technologies based on many-body quantum systems. We mainly ...

We study the physical mechanism of Maxwell's Demon (MD) helping to do extra work in thermodynamic cycles, by describing measurement of position, insertion of wall and information erasing of MD in a quantum mechanical fashion. The heat engine is exemplified with one molecule confined in an infinitely deep square potential inserted with a movable solid wall, while the MD is modeled as a two-level system (TLS) for measuring and controlling the motion of the molecule. It is disco...

The study of Maxwell demon and quantum entanglement is important because of its foundational significance in physics and its potential applications in quantum information. Previous research on the Maxwell demon has primarily focused on thermodynamics, taking into account quantum correlations. Here we consider from another perspective and ask whether quantum non-locality correlations can be simulated by performing work. The Maxwell demon-assisted Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) ...

In the last twenty years there has been significant progress in our understanding of quantum transport far from equilibrium and a conceptual framework has emerged through a combination of the Landauer approach with the non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) method, which is now being widely used in the analysis and design of nanoscale devices. It provides a unified description for all kinds of devices from molecular conductors to carbon nanotubes to silicon transistors coverin...