Seminário do Grupo de Hádrons e Física Teórica (GRHAFITE) – FEP – FNC
"Quantum thermodynamics: what it means and what it strives for"
Prof. Dr. Gabriel Teixeira Landi, IFUSP
Dia: 25 de setembro, terça-feira, às 17h.
Local: Ed. Principal, Ala 2, Sala 335, IFUSP
Abstract:
The last decades have witnessed a remarkable progress in the coherent manipulation of microscopic systems. This has opened up the path for exploring more subtle properties of the quantum world, such as entanglement and coherence, which were usually quickly lost due to the contact with the environment. A natural question that follows from this new and unprecedented level of control, is whether or not these quantum features may be exploited for novel applications. That is, whether or not they represent resources which can be consumed to obtain quantum advantages. These ideas, which are generically referred to as quantum information processing, include areas such as computation, communications, metrology, simulation and so on. Interestingly, however, this idea that the quantum world may offer novel resources, actually takes quantum physics closer to the century-old theory of thermodynamics. Indeed, thermodynamics is also a theory about resources, which can be consumed or interconverted according to certain rules. Quantum thermodynamics is therefore the field of research which aims at bridging together these two seemingly distant worlds. Its goal is to address questions such as what are the rules that dictate the interconversion of one resource to another and how to quantify the efficiency of that process and the amount of resources that are irreversibly lost. Or whether quantum resources, such as entanglement, could actually be useful to perform mechanical work. In this talk I will review some of these ideas and future perspectives, focusing on some of the important breakthroughs from the last decades and also some of my personal contributions to the field.
