Quantum Bath Refrigeration towards Absolute Zero: Challenging the Unattainability Principle
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: A minimal model of a quantum refrigerator, i.e., a periodically phase-flipped two-level system permanently coupled to a finite-capacity bath (cold bath) and an infinite heat dump (hot bath), is introduced and used to investigate the cooling of the cold bath towards absolute zero (T=0). Remarkably, the temperature scaling of the cold-bath cooling rate reveals that it does not vanish as T→0 for certain realistic quantized baths, e.g., phonons in strongly disordered media (fractons) or quantized spin waves in ferromagnets (magnons). This result challenges Nernst's third-law formulation known as the unattainability principle.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Authors: M. Kolář, D. Gelbwaser-Klimovsky, R. Alicki, G. Kurizki
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W51380241