Third law of thermodynamics as a single inequality

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Original languageEnglish
Article number041033
JournalPhysical Review X
Volume7
Issue number4
Publication statusPublished - 13 Nov 2017
Externally publishedYes

Abstract

The third law of thermodynamics in the form of the unattainability principle states that exact ground-state cooling requires infinite resources. Here, we investigate the amount of nonequilibrium resources needed for approximate cooling.We consider as a resource any system out of equilibrium, allowing for resources beyond the independent and identically distributed assumption and including the input of work as a particular case. We establish in full generality a sufficient and a necessary condition for cooling and showthat, for a vast class of nonequilibrium resources, these two conditions coincide, providing a single necessary and sufficient criterion. Such conditions are expressed in terms of a single function playing a role for the third law similar to the one of the free energy for the second law. From a technical point of view, we provide newresults about the concavity or convexity of certain Renyi divergences, which might be of independent interest.

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Third law of thermodynamics as a single inequality. / Wilming, Henrik; Gallego, Rodrigo.
In: Physical Review X, Vol. 7, No. 4, 041033, 13.11.2017.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Wilming H, Gallego R. Third law of thermodynamics as a single inequality. Physical Review X. 2017 Nov 13;7(4):041033. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041033
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