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Exploring Quantum Mpemba Effects


In the Mpemba effect, a warm liquid freezes faster than a cold one. Three studies investigate quantum versions of this effect, challenging our understanding of quantum thermodynamics.

A few years ago, researchers made great strides by observing that a colloidal system can cool exponentially faster if it starts at a higher temperature, in alignment with specific theoretical models [ 6]. Shahaf Aharony Shapira and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel used the open-system approach and performed experiments on a single trapped ion, whose cold spin was coupled to a warm Markovian environment in thermal equilibrium [ 3]. By contrast, Lata Joshi at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and colleagues adopted the unitary approach and experimentally studied a closed quantum system consisting of a chain of 12 interacting trapped ions near zero temperature [ 4].

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