Thermodynamic control by frequent quantum measurements

Noam Erez, Goren Gordon, Mathias Nest and Gershon Kurizki ()
Additional contact information
Noam Erez: Weizmann Institute of Science
Goren Gordon: Weizmann Institute of Science
Mathias Nest: Theoretische Chemie, Universitaet Potsdam
Gershon Kurizki: Weizmann Institute of Science

Nature, 2008, vol. 452, issue 7188, 724-727

Abstract: Extreme measurements Erez et al. enter uncharted territory with their prediction of the behaviour of a hitherto unexplored quantum mechanical setting in which neither the second law of thermodynamics, nor the common notion that heat always flows from hotter to colder ensembles, can be relied upon. In work compared in the accompanying News and Views piece to a quantum evocation of Maxwell's demon, the processes of quantum measurement appear to control thermodynamical behaviour. The system considered consists of two energy levels surrounded by a 'heat bath' that can supply or soak up any amount of heat. In such two-level quantum systems, the act of making a measurement can cause their relaxation to either slow down (the Zeno effect, where a continuously observed unstable particle never decays), or to speed up (the anti-Zeno effect). The latter effect is associated with a decrease in entropy and temperature of the system and its bath, while the former results in heating and higher entropy. That type of behaviour breaks the standard thermodynamical rules. In practical terms, these anomalies may offer the possibility of very fast control of heat and entropy in quantum systems.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06873 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:452:y:2008:i:7188:d:10.1038_nature06873

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature06873

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().