Second law of thermodynamics with quantum memory (1701.07628v2)

Abstract: We design a heat engine with multi-heat-reservoir, ancillary system and quantum memory. We then derive an inequality related with the second law of thermodynamics, and give a new limitation about the work gain from the engine by analyzing the entropy change and quantum mutual information change during the process. In addition and remarkably, by combination of two independent engines and with the help of the entropic uncertainty relation with quantum memory, we find that the total maximum work gained from those two heat engines should be larger than a quantity related with quantum entanglement between the ancillary state and the quantum memory. This result provides a lower bound for the maximum work extracted, in contrast with the upper bound in the conventional second law of thermodynamics. However, the validity of this inequality depends on whether the maximum work can achieve the upper bound.