Correlated catalyst in quantum thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in quantum thermodynamics focusing on correlated catalysts, highlighting how certain properties enable state transformations and how these can be combined in enhanced thermal operations.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of covariant Gibbs-preserving operations and demonstrates their role in quantum thermodynamics with correlated catalysts.

Findings

Gibbs preserving property fully characterizes state convertibility via the second law.

Covariant operations enable free state convertibility for states with finite coherence.

Enhanced thermal operations combine Gibbs-preserving and covariant properties for improved thermodynamic processes.

Abstract

In this short review article, we present recent progress in quantum thermodynamics in the framework with a correlated catalyst. We examine two key properties of thermal operations, the Gibbs preserving property and the covariant property. The state convertibility of a Gibbs preserving operation is fully characterized by the second law of thermodynamics with the nonequilibrium free energy. The state convertibility of a covariant operation is shown to be free as long as an initial state has finite coherence. We finally show that these two findings can be combined in the enhanced thermal operation (covariant Gibbs-preserving operation).