Correlated catalyst in quantum thermodynamics

Department of Basic Science, The University of Tokyo - 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan

Received: 16 July 2024
Accepted: 6 November 2024

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).