A new paper by FQXi member Vlatko Vedral and colleagues on the thermodynamics of quantum systems has been highlighted in a news story on phys.org. Thanks to John Merryman for alerting us to it!
The article covers Vedral and co's proposed experimental scheme to verify the quantum nonequilibrium fluctuation relations using current technology, which was published in PRL. In a second PRL paper a team at Queen's University, in Belfast, including Marco Paternostro, propose a way to measure the characteristic function of the work distribution of a quantum system.
From the article, Paternostro says: "Fundamentally, we could start exploring quantum thermodynamics, which puts together a genuine quantum approach and the rock-solid foundations of thermodynamics...We (and a few other researchers) are trying to do it from an information theoretic viewpoint, hoping to get new insight into this fascinating area. Practically, the grounding of quantum thermodynamics would imply the incorporation of quantum advantages in thermodynamical processes, such as the engineering of cycles, refrigerators and thermal machines."
You can discuss the article and papers here...