Apparent conflicts fuel progress in physics. Some of the deepest physics concerns how our everyday reality emerges from quantum mechanics. “Classical” mechanics, formulated during the 1600s, governs everyday reality. In contrast, quantum mechanics features counterintuitive phenomena such as wave–particle duality and entanglement.
Classical reality’s emergence relies on thermodynamics—the science of energy—which decrees the spread of initially concentrated information, like the diffusion of perfume across a room. A quantum system—say, an atom—may leak information about its quantum state to its surroundings—surrounding air molecules and a scientist who measures the atom. This information spread can annihilate the atom’s quantum behaviors, such as superpositions. Yet this simple story contains mathematical snags.
Our team has found four apparent conflicts in the relation between thermodynamics and classical reality’s emergence. For example, many reasonable models for an atom interacting with its surroundings preserve the atom’s quantum nature. The incongruities stem from fundamental principles of physics, ranging from uncertainty to general relativity. These puzzles call for quantum thermodynamics—a recently developed field that merges thermodynamics, founded during the 1800s, with 21st-century quantum physics.
Using quantum thermodynamics, we will resolve the four conflicts: conjecture resolutions, support them mathematically, and experimentally test them. Solving these puzzles will enable a unified theory of thermodynamics and the emergence of classical reality. This research will dovetail with our community building. We will broaden North America’s quantum-thermodynamics community, incorporating experimentalists and newly founded theory groups. This expansion will cement Maryland—home to five of our groups—as a capital for the field in North America. Public outreach, including “quantum steampunk” literature, will spread the wonder of quantum thermodynamics.
