Ramanujan Auditorium

Quantum steampunk: Quantum information meets thermodynamics

Nicole Yunger Halpern

NIST and JQIC, University of Maryland

Thermodynamics has shed light on engines, efficiency, and time’s arrow since the
Industrial Revolution. But the steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution
were large and classical. Much of today’s technology and experiments are small-scale,
quantum, far from equilibrium, and processing information. Nineteenth-century
thermodynamics needs re-envisioning for the 21 st century. Guidance has come from the
mathematical toolkit of quantum information theory. Applying quantum information
theory to thermodynamics sheds light on fundamental questions (e.g., how does
entanglement spread during quantum thermalization? How can we distinguish quantum
heat from quantum work?) and practicalities (e.g., quantum engines and the
thermodynamic value of coherences). I will overview how quantum information theory is
being used to revolutionize thermodynamics in quantum steampunk, named for the
steampunk genre of literature, art, and cinema that juxtaposes futuristic technologies
with 19th-century settings.