Quantum Cooling

Figure: A depiction of how a quantum thermal machine designed for cooling is structured (from [3]).

Thermodynamics serves as a bridge between our understanding of the physical world and our ability to manipulate it, embedding considerations of resource costs and practical implementation at its core. It holds a unique operational role that spans all areas of physics, from complex many-body systems to individual quantum particles. We are generally interested in the ability to process information in a thermodynamic world, from both a practical and foundational perspective.

In quantum systems, the cost of control can often outweigh potential quantum advantages. However, thermodynamics, with its principles of minimal information and control, provides a natural foundation for developing practical information-processing protocols. We aim to explore how closely we can approach the thermodynamic limitations such as the Laws of Thermodynamics and Landauer's bound. Our work investigates the optimal allocation of resources for challenging tasks such as cooling or information erasure [1-3], energy storage [4, 5], and the creation of correlation [6, 7], pushing the boundaries of what's achievable in quantum information processing.

  1. F. Clivaz et al., Unifying Paradigms of Quantum Refrigeration: A Universal and Attainable Bound on Cooling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 170605 (2019).

  2. P. Taranto, F. Bakhshinezhad, P. Schüttelkopf, F. Clivaz, and M. Huber, Exponential Improvement for Quantum Cooling through Finite-Memory Effects, Phys. Rev. Appl. 14, 054005 (2020).

  3. P. Taranto, F. Bakhshinezhad, A. Bluhm, R. Silva, N. Friis, M. P. E. Lock, G. Vitagliano, F. C. Binder, T. Debarba, E. Schwarzhans, F. Clivaz, and M. Huber, Landauer Versus Nernst: What is the True Cost of Cooling a Quantum System?, PRX Quantum 4, 010332 (2023).

  4. N. Friis, and M. Huber, Precision and work fluctuations in gaussian battery charging, Quantum 2 61 (2018).

  5. P. Bakhshinezhad, B. R. Jablonski, F. C. Binder, N. Friis, Trade-offs between precision and fluctuations in charging finite-dimensional quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. E 109, 014131 (2024).

  6. D. E. Bruschi, M. Perarnau-Llobet, N. Friis, K. V. Hovhannisyan and M. Huber, The thermodynamics of creating correlations: Limitations and optimal protocols,  Phys. Rev. E 91 032118 (2015).

  7. F. Bakhshinezhad, F. Clivaz, G. Vitagliano, P. Erker, A.T. Rezakhani, M. Huber, and N. Friis, Thermodynamically optimal creation of correlations, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 52, 465303 (2019).