Toward physical realizations of thermodynamic resource theories

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for experimentally realizing thermodynamic resource theories, which are crucial for understanding small-scale thermodynamics, by identifying eleven key opportunities to bridge theory and practice.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of eleven practical steps to transition thermodynamic resource theories from theoretical frameworks to experimental realizations.

Findings

Identified eleven opportunities for physical realization of thermodynamic resource theories.

Highlighted the gap between theoretical developments and experimental applications.

Suggested pathways to integrate resource theories into experimental thermodynamics.

Abstract

Conventional statistical mechanics describes large systems and averages over many particles or over many trials. But work, heat, and entropy impact the small scales that experimentalists can increasingly control, e.g., in single-molecule experiments. The statistical mechanics of small scales has been quantified with two toolkits developed in quantum information theory: resource theories and one-shot information theory. The field has boomed recently, but the theorems amassed have hardly impacted experiments. Can thermodynamic resource theories be realized experimentally? Via what steps can we shift the theory toward physical realizations? Should we care? I present eleven opportunities in physically realizing thermodynamic resource theories.