Thermodynamics, irreversibility and quantum information

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• David Jennings (Oxford)
• Friday 29 September 2017, 12:00-13:00
• Physics East 217.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Giovanni Barontini.

The concept of irreversibility lies at the heart of physics and can often be a subtle thing to pin down. In recent years it has acquired new guises that are motivated by information-theoretic aims. For example in the case of quantum entanglement, intrinsically non-classical correlations may be utilised to achieve tasks such as quantum teleportation or quantum computing. However, the use of this entanglement results in its consumption, and a form of irreversibility that can be quantified and studied in a precise manner. Here I will describe recent work that has grown out of the study of entanglement and which allows us to extend thermodynamic concepts into arbitrarily extreme quantum regimes. The approach leads to a range of new insights: it shows that quantum systems display a distinct form of irreversibility at the nanoscale, it allows us to quantify the effects of quantum coherence in general thermodynamic processes, it leads to new tools for quantum metrology and highlights the central role that quantum clocks play within quantum thermodynamics. The discussion will be an introduction to these concepts, and so no specialist knowledge of the area is assumed.

This talk is part of the Cold atoms series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Bham Talks
• Cold Atoms
• Cold atoms
• Physics East 217
• What's on in Physics?

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