Does the Third Law of Thermodynamics hold in the Quantum Regime?

Abstract

The first in a long series of papers by John T. Lewis, G. W. Ford and the present author, considered the problem of the most general coupling of a quantum particle to a linear passive heat bath, in the course of which they derived an exact formula for the free energy of an oscillator coupled to a heat bath in thermal equilibrium at temperature T. This formula, and its later extension to three dimensions to incorporate a magnetic field, has proved to be invaluable in analyzing problems in quantum thermodynamics. Here, we address the question raised in our title viz. Nernst's third law of thermodynamics.

References in corpus (1)

• A quantum violation of the second law?

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Quantum Refrigerator and the III-law of Thermodynamics
• Thermodynamics of a subensemble of a canonical ensemble
• Casimir interaction from magnetically coupled eddy currents
• Quantum thermodynamics from the nonequilibrium dynamics of open systems: energy, heat capacity and the third law
• Local Temperatures Out of Equilibrium
• Thermodynamics of quantum systems strongly coupled to a heat bath I. Operator thermodynamic functions and relations
• Equilibrium and transient thermodynamics: A unified dissipaton-space approach
• Independent-oscillator model and the quantum Langevin equation for an oscillator: A review
• The third law of thermodynamics in open quantum systems
• Quantum corrections to the entropy and its application in the study of quantum Carnot engines
• Consistency of a Causal Theory of Radiative Reaction with the Optical Theorem