Passivity, complete passivity, and virtual temperatures.
Skrzypczyk PICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain.
Silva RH. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom.
Brunner NDépartement de Physique Théorique, Université de Genève, 1211 Genève, Switzerland.
2015-06-13
Published in:
Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics. - 2015
English
We give a simple and intuitive proof that the only states which are completely passive, i.e., those states from which work cannot be extracted even with infinitely many copies, are Gibbs states at positive temperatures. The proof makes use of the idea of virtual temperatures, i.e., the association of temperatures to pairs of energy levels (transitions). We show that (1) passive states are those where every transition is at a positive temperature and (2) completely passive states are those where every transition is at the same positive temperature.