PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

New quantum theory heats up thermodynamic research

New quantum theory heats up thermodynamic research
2021-03-05
(Press-News.org) Researchers have developed a new quantum version of a 150-year-old thermodynamical thought experiment that could pave the way for the development of quantum heat engines.

Mathematicians from the University of Nottingham have applied new quantum theory to the Gibbs paradox and demonstrated a fundamental difference in the roles of information and control between classical and quantum thermodynamics. Their research has been published today in Nature Communications.

The classical Gibbs paradox led to crucial insights for the development of early thermodynamics and emphasises the need to consider an experimenter's degree of control over a system.

The research team developed a theory based on mixing two quantum gases - for example, one red and one blue, otherwise identical - which start separated and then mix in a box. Overall, the system has become more uniform, which is quantified by an increase in entropy. If the observer then puts on purple-tinted glasses and repeats the process; the gases look the same, so it appears as if nothing changes. In this case, the entropy change is zero.

The lead authors on the paper, Benjamin Yadin and Benjamin Morris, explain: "Our findings seem odd because we expect physical quantities such as entropy to have meaning independent of who calculates them. In order to resolve the paradox, we must realise that thermodynamics tells us what useful things can be done by an experimenter who has devices with specific capabilities. For example, a heated expanding gas can be used to drive an engine. In order to extract work (useful energy) from the mixing process, you need a device that can "see" the difference between red and blue gases."

Classically, an "ignorant" experimenter, who sees the gases as indistinguishable, cannot extract work from the mixing process. The research shows that in the quantum case, despite being unable to tell the difference between the gases, the ignorant experimenter can still extract work through mixing them.

Considering the situation when the system becomes large, where quantum behaviour would normally disappear, the researchers found that the quantum ignorant observer can extract as much work as if they had been able to distinguish the gases. Controlling these gases with a large quantum device would behave entirely differently from a classical macroscopic heat engine. This phenomenon results from the existence of special superposition states that encode more information than is available classically.

Professor Gerardo Adesso said: "Despite a century of research, there are so many aspects we don't know or we don't understand yet at the heart of quantum mechanics. Such a fundamental ignorance, however, doesn't prevent us from putting quantum features to good use, as our work reveals. We hope our theoretical study can inspire exciting developments in the burgeoning field of quantum thermodynamics and catalyse further progress in the ongoing race for quantum-enhanced technologies.

"Quantum heat engines are microscopic versions of our everyday heaters and refrigerators, which may be realised with just one or a few atoms (as already experimentally verified) and whose performance can be boosted by genuine quantum effects such as superposition and entanglement. Presently, to see our quantum Gibbs paradox played out in a laboratory would require exquisite control over the system parameters, something which may be possible in fine-tuned "optical lattice" systems or Bose-Einstein condensates - we are currently at work to design such proposals in collaboration with experimental groups."

INFORMATION:


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
New quantum theory heats up thermodynamic research

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

RCSI researchers discover new way to halt excessive inflammation

RCSI researchers discover new way to halt excessive inflammation
2021-03-05
DUBLIN, Friday, 5 March 2021: RCSI researchers have discovered a new way to 'put the brakes' on excessive inflammation by regulating a type of white blood cell that is critical for our immune system. The discovery has the potential to protect the body from unchecked damage caused by inflammatory diseases. The paper, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in Nature Communications. When immune cells (white blood cells) in our body called macrophages are exposed to potent infectious agents, powerful inflammatory proteins ...

Overweight children exposed to lead in utero may have poor future kidney function

2021-03-05
New York, NY (March 5, 2021) - Overweight children who were exposed to lead in utero and during their first weeks of life have the potential for poorer kidney function in adulthood, according to an Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study published in Environment International in March. The study found that children with high body mass indexes who had been exposed to lead had lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a measure of how well the kidneys are filtering or cleaning the blood. The researchers measured blood levels during mothers' pregnancy and later measured eGFR levels in the children when they were between 8 and 12 years old. Decreased ...

Beauty is in the brain: AI reads brain data, generates personally attractive images

Beauty is in the brain: AI reads brain data, generates personally attractive images
2021-03-05
Researchers have succeeded in making an AI understand our subjective notions of what makes faces attractive. The device demonstrated this knowledge by its ability to create new portraits on its own that were tailored to be found personally attractive to individuals. The results can be utilised, for example, in modelling preferences and decision-making as well as potentially identifying unconscious attitudes. Researchers at the University of Helsinki and University of Copenhagen investigated whether a computer would be able to identify the facial features we consider attractive and, based on this, create new images matching our criteria. The researchers used artificial intelligence to interpret brain signals and combined the resulting brain-computer interface with a ...

Variable compensation and salesperson health

2021-03-05
Researchers from University of Houston and University of Bochum published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how variable compensation plans for salespeople can lead to lower health. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Variable Compensation and Salesperson Health" and is authored by Johannes Habel, Sascha Alavi, and Kim Linsenmayer. Sales compensation plans typically comprise a variable component. Variable compensation is issued on top of a base salary and the amount is contingent on performance. For example, a salesperson with an annual target salary ...

Study shows that regular physical activity is an effective strategy to prevent

2021-03-05
New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) shows that regular physical activity is a safe diabetes prevention strategy for people residing in relatively polluted regions. The study, which is the first to investigate the combined effects of physical activity and pollution exposure on type 2 diabetes risk, is by Dr Cui Guo and Professor Lao Xiang Qian, Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China, and Dr Hsiao Ting Yang, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, and colleagues. An increasing body of evidence has shown that air pollution ...

Culturally tailored intervention boosts safe sex, reduces drinking among young Black women

2021-03-04
A series of weekend workshops that integrate strategies for both reducing risky alcohol use and preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) led to an increase in safe sex and decrease in drinking among young Black women, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. "By designing an intervention that didn't treat sex and alcohol use as two separate risk factors, young women were empowered to make healthier decisions and better communicate with their partners," said Ralph DiClemente, professor and chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author. "This groundbreaking study illustrates ...

Twistoptics--A new way to control optical nonlinearity

Twistoptics--A new way to control optical nonlinearity
2021-03-04
Columbia researchers engineer first technique to exploit the tunable symmetry of 2D materials for nonlinear optical applications, including laser, optical spectroscopy, imaging, and metrology systems, as well as next-generation optical quantum information processing and computing. New York, NY--March 4, 2021--Nonlinear optics, a study of how light interacts with matter, is critical to many photonic applications, from the green laser pointers we're all familiar with to intense broadband (white) light sources for quantum photonics that enable optical quantum computing, super-resolution imaging, optical sensing and ranging, and more. Through nonlinear optics, researchers are discovering new ways to use light, from getting a closer look at ultrafast processes in physics, ...

An unstable working life affects the future mental health of young people

An unstable working life affects the future mental health of young people
2021-03-04
A new study reveals that a precarious, unstable initiation by young people to working life is associated with poorer future mental health. The study was conducted by researchers from the Center for Research in Occupational Health (CISAL, a joint group of UPF and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute) in Barcelona, Spain. Amaya Ayala-Garcia, Laura Serra and Mònica Ubalde-López are the authors of the study, which has been published in the journal BMJ Open. Since the 1990s, Spain has been among the European countries with the lowest employment rates, which are accentuated in the young active population. Moreover, in 2017, Spain ...

COVID-19 lockdown linked to uptick in tobacco use

2021-03-04
March 4, 2021 -- Pandemic-related anxiety, boredom, and irregular routines were cited as major drivers of increased nicotine and tobacco use during the initial COVID-19 "lockdown," according to research just released by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The study highlights ways that public health interventions and policies can better support quit attempts and harm reduction, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The findings are published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. Between April-May 2020, the researchers conducted ...

Team of bioethicists and scientists suggests revisiting 14-day limit on human embryo

Team of bioethicists and scientists suggests revisiting 14-day limit on human embryo
2021-03-04
CLEVELAND (March 5, 2021)--An international team of bioethicists and scientists, led by a researcher at Case Western Reserve University, contends it may be justified to go beyond the standing 14-day limit that restricts how long researchers can study human embryos in a dish. Going beyond this policy limit could lead to potential health and fertility benefits, and the authors provide a process for doing so. In an article published March 5 in Science, Insoo Hyun, a bioethics professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the paper's lead author, and colleagues urge policymakers and the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) to consider "a cautious, stepwise approach" to scientific exploration beyond the 14-day limit. "But first," ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

PLOS One study: In adolescent lab animals exposed to cocaine, High-Intensity Interval Training boosts aversion to the drug

Scientists identify four ways our bodies respond to COVID-19 vaccines

Stronger together: A new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

Hidden brain waves as triggers for post-seizure wandering

[Press-News.org] New quantum theory heats up thermodynamic research