A whistle-stop tour of quantum thermodynamics

The steady interest in understanding the thermodynamics of quantum systems has led to several approaches to defining work and heat in a quantum mechanically consistent way (at least almost consistent!). Quantum thermodynamics as a subfield has grown steadily in the last 15 years, revealing the impact that coherence can have on the energetics of quantum systems. In the first part of this talk, I will initially aim to provide an overview of some of the major lines of inquiry in the field, briefly discussing commonly employed definitions of quantum work, its experimental measurement, and some proof-of-principle demonstrations of nano-scale quantum heat engines. I will then discuss the interesting insights that can be derived by exploring in detail the quantum work statistics for many-body quantum systems which are host to critical phenomena including quantum and localisation phase transitions.

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