A whistle-stop tour of quantum thermodynamics

The steady interest in understanding the thermodynamics of quantum systems has led to several approaches to defining work and heat in a quantum mechanically consistent way. Quantum thermodynamics as a subfield has grown steadily in the last 15 years, revealing the impact that coherence can have on the energetics of quantum systems. I will initially aim to provide an overview of some of the major lines of inquiry in the field, briefly discussing commonly employed definitions of quantum work, its experimental measurement, and some proof-of-principle demonstrations of nano-scale quantum heat engines. We will then zero in on some exciting new directions that the community has begun to explore, as recently collated in Ref [1]. We will aim to touch on the full breadth of applications, ranging from the foundational aspects, e.g. information propagation and scrambling which lie at the interface of quantum information and high energy physics, to the practical ramifications of the theory, which is driving the design of energetically efficient quantum technologies.

[1] Roadmap on Quantum Thermodynamics, S. Campbell et al, arXiv:2504.20145 (to appear Quantum Sci. Technol. 2026)