Coordination Funds

热力学的惊人力量是在19世纪发展起来的，它的基本结构很大程度上源于它的粗粒度观点，从实现的细节中抽象出来，从而产生了对大量物理系统的描述。然而，新的问题出现了——超越了传统的热力学图景——当目标是捕获小型设备时，随机波动很重要，或者量子效应有望发挥重要作用的机器和设备。近年来，人们对理解量子热力学领域产生了极大的兴趣，量子热力学是对纠缠、量子涨落、量子信息交换和相干性可能相关的热力学状态变换的研究。虽然在量子效应影响的理论理解方面已经取得了第一次成功，例如，当涉及到用整个第二定律家族取代第二定律时，或者理解量子存储器以何种方式允许兰道尔擦除的工作成本为负时，许多概念性问题仍然有待解决。也许最重要的是，缺乏最终证明量子优势的实验实现。这个计划中的研究股着手填补这些空白。它汇集了领先的实验研究人员，对捕获离子、超冷原子和nv中心进行实验，并提出了适合量子效应的新方法，以及在量子热力学领域工作的精心挑选的理论家联盟。这是一项极具挑战性的工作。一方面，这是正确的，因为需要大量的实验开发来建立有潜力增强工作和能量提取的平台，并实际展示真正的量子效应。另一方面，由于概念性的理论问题仍然需要解决：重要的是，需要澄清在什么精确意义上现实的和可实现的量子机器可以超越经典的量子机器，与资源理论有关，以何种方式期望小系统热化，如何挑战传统的系统浴分离观点，以及如何建立与量子纠错的联系。这项工作有望对我们对热力学过程基础的理解产生影响，接受自然界最终是量子的这一观点。它还可能具有重要的技术意义，比如在设计冷却技术或量子冰箱方面。因此，该研究单位有望在最终证明量子热力学具有改进量子热机的潜力方面做出改变，并为德国研究领域内外的讨论和交流提供一个中心。

The astonishing power of thermodynamics, developed in its basic structure in the 19th century, stems largely from its coarse-grained viewpoint, abstracting from details of implementations, giving rise to a description of a plethora of physical systems. Still, new questions arise - going beyond the traditional picture of thermodynamics - when aiming at capturing small devices, for which stochastic fluctuations matter, or machines and devices for which quantum effects are expected to play a significant role. Recent years have seen an enormously revived interest in understanding the realm of quantum thermodynamics, the study of thermodynamic state transformations in regimes in which entanglement, quantum fluctuations, quantum information exchange, and coherences are presumably relevant. While first successes in the theoretical understanding of the impact of quantum effects have been achieved, say, when it comes to replacing second laws by entire families of second laws or to understanding in what way a quantum memory allows the work cost in Landauer erasure to be negative, many conceptual questions remain wide open. Perhaps most importantly, experimental realisations are lacking that ultimately demonstrate the asserted quantum advantage. This planned Research Unit sets out to fill these gaps. It brings together leading experimental researchers performing experiments on trapped ions, ultra-cold atoms, and NV-centres and suggests novel ways of suitable quantum effects, as well as a well-chosen consortium of theorists working in the field of quantum thermodynamics. This is a highly challenging endeavour. On the one hand this is true since substantial experimental development is required to establish platforms that have the potential to enhance work and power extraction and actually exhibit genuine quantum effects. On the other hand, since conceptual theoretical questions need to be settled still: Importantly, a clarification is required in what precise sense realistic and realisable quantum machines can outperform classical ones, relating to resource theories, in what way small systems are expected to thermalise, how traditional views on system-bath separation can be challenged, and how connections to quantum error correction may be established. This work is expected to have an impact on our understanding of the foundations of thermodynamical processes, accepting that nature is ultimately quantum. It is also likely to have important technological implications, say, when it comes to devising cooling techniques or quantum refrigerators. Thus, this Research Unit is expected to make a change in ultimately demonstrating that quantum thermodynamics has the potential to improve quantum heat engines, and in providing a hub for discussion and interchange within the German research landscape and beyond.