Reversing the flow of heat in system of initially correlated qubits
(2021) FYSK02 20211Mathematical Physics
Department of Physics
- Abstract
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics is considered to be one of the most fundamental and important laws of Physics. Both Clausius and Kelvin reformulated the Second Law as statements concerning the behaviour of two communicating systems, set to interact at different temperatures. The average positive entropy production of any process, described by the Second Law, is often understood as a "thermodynamic arrow of time" capable of discerning the direction in which physical events should arrange.
By studying a microscopic system described by two initially correlated qubits, in this thesis we explore the phenomenon of reverse energy flow. Differently from an often standard uncorrelated case, the correlated one shows properties that seem to... (More) - The Second Law of Thermodynamics is considered to be one of the most fundamental and important laws of Physics. Both Clausius and Kelvin reformulated the Second Law as statements concerning the behaviour of two communicating systems, set to interact at different temperatures. The average positive entropy production of any process, described by the Second Law, is often understood as a "thermodynamic arrow of time" capable of discerning the direction in which physical events should arrange.
By studying a microscopic system described by two initially correlated qubits, in this thesis we explore the phenomenon of reverse energy flow. Differently from an often standard uncorrelated case, the correlated one shows properties that seem to suggest that a further generalization of both Clausius and Kelvin's statements is needed (Less) - Popular Abstract
- Since its initial conception, the field of Thermodynamics revealed its ability in modelling fundamental interactions (such as temperature exchange) between bodies, in order to quantify the amount of extractable energy from a system. Quite noticeably, the field provided the means for the understanding of three fundamental laws to classical Thermodyanmics. Until then, all the studied physical laws seemed to present a time reversal symmetry, which would make it impossible to devise an experiment capable of discerning the direction of the "arrow of time". With the development of the Second Law, physicists seemed to have found a relation that did not seem to present a symmetry about the direction of the passing of time. The Second Law seemed to... (More)
- Since its initial conception, the field of Thermodynamics revealed its ability in modelling fundamental interactions (such as temperature exchange) between bodies, in order to quantify the amount of extractable energy from a system. Quite noticeably, the field provided the means for the understanding of three fundamental laws to classical Thermodyanmics. Until then, all the studied physical laws seemed to present a time reversal symmetry, which would make it impossible to devise an experiment capable of discerning the direction of the "arrow of time". With the development of the Second Law, physicists seemed to have found a relation that did not seem to present a symmetry about the direction of the passing of time. The Second Law seemed to imply the irreversibility of some thermodynamics processes, making it possible to discern in what direction the aroow of time should point.
Among others, Clausius reformulated the Second Law of Thermodynamics into a statement concerning the flow of heat from a hot body to one of lower temperature. He stated that if we considered the system composed by the two bodies as isolated, then heat could only flow in the direction that would bring the cold and hot bodies to reach a shared stable temperature.
In this thesis work we focus on exploring the phenomenon of heat flow as described by the exchange of energy between two correlated microscopic systems.
When descending into smaller length scales, quantum mechanical events start to become predominant and hard to disregard. In quantum mechanics, the time evolution of a quantum state is dictated by an equation known as the Schrodinger's equation. The implications of using this equation to time evolve a specific state is the lack of change in the system-describing quantity known as entropy. According to the Second Law, when the entropy of a system remains unchanged after some time evolution, all processes that occurred in said evolution must be reversible. And therefore, in the scenario in which two objects are put into contact, heat would not be allowed to flow. In this thesis we find that if an initial correlation was to be set between the two interacting microscopic systems, then a time evolution preserving the entropy of the whole system is not only capable of recovering a flow of heat, but it is also capable of determining in which direction would the flow of heat choose: this ultimately leads to the possibility of increasing the temperature difference between two microscopic systems, showing that the concept of an arrow of time is to be considered strictly dependent on the choice of initial conditions of the described system. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9059306
- author
- Diotallevi, Giovanni Francesco LU ; Samuelsson, Peter and Bakhshinezhad, Faraj
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- FYSK02 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Qubits, Cooling, Heat Flow
- language
- English
- id
- 9059306
- date added to LUP
- 2021-07-07 21:11:02
- date last changed
- 2021-07-07 21:11:02
@misc{9059306,
abstract = {{The Second Law of Thermodynamics is considered to be one of the most fundamental and important laws of Physics. Both Clausius and Kelvin reformulated the Second Law as statements concerning the behaviour of two communicating systems, set to interact at different temperatures. The average positive entropy production of any process, described by the Second Law, is often understood as a "thermodynamic arrow of time" capable of discerning the direction in which physical events should arrange.
By studying a microscopic system described by two initially correlated qubits, in this thesis we explore the phenomenon of reverse energy flow. Differently from an often standard uncorrelated case, the correlated one shows properties that seem to suggest that a further generalization of both Clausius and Kelvin's statements is needed}},
author = {{Diotallevi, Giovanni Francesco and Samuelsson, Peter and Bakhshinezhad, Faraj}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Reversing the flow of heat in system of initially correlated qubits}},
year = {{2021}},
}