Role of Quantum Coherence in Thermodynamics

Abstract

We find necessary and sufficient conditions to determine the interconvertibility of quantum systems under time-translation covariant evolution, and use it to solve several problems in quantum thermodynamics both in the single-shot and asymptotic regimes. It is well known that the resource theory of quantum athermality is not reversible, but in Brandão et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 250404 (2013)] it was claimed that the theory becomes reversible "provided a sublinear amount of coherent superposition over energy levels is available."Here we show that if a sublinear amount of coherence among energy levels were considered free, then the resource theory of athermality would become trivial. Instead, we show that by considering a sublinear amount of energy to be free, the theory of athermality becomes reversible for the pure-state case. A proof of the same claim for the mixed-state case is still lacking.