dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaA quantum violation of the second law?
| Authors | G. W. Ford, R. F. O'Connell |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0602050 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0602050 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.020402 |
| Journal | Phys. Rev. Letters 96, 020402 (2006) |
Abstract
An apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics occurs when an atom coupled to a zero-temperature bath, being necessarily in an excited state, is used to extract work from the bath. Here the fallacy is that it takes work to couple the atom to the bath and this work must exceed that obtained from the atom. For the example of an oscillator coupled to a bath described by the single relaxation time model, the mean oscillator energy and the minimum work required to couple the oscillator to the bath are both calculated explicitly and in closed form. It is shown that the minimum work always exceeds the mean oscillator energy, so there is no violation of the second law.
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"abstract": "An apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics occurs when an atom\ncoupled to a zero-temperature bath, being necessarily in an excited state, is\nused to extract work from the bath. Here the fallacy is that it takes work to\ncouple the atom to the bath and this work must exceed that obtained from the\natom. For the example of an oscillator coupled to a bath described by the\nsingle relaxation time model, the mean oscillator energy and the minimum work\nrequired to couple the oscillator to the bath are both calculated explicitly\nand in closed form. It is shown that the minimum work always exceeds the mean\noscillator energy, so there is no violation of the second law.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0602050",
"authors": [
"G. W. Ford",
"R. F. O\u0027Connell"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.020402",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Rev. Letters 96, 020402 (2006)",
"title": "A quantum violation of the second law?",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0602050"
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