Quantum Quantum-Thermodynamics

The thermodynamic implications of quantization of energy were realized before the full quantum theory was developed, and today its effects are very well (though perhaps not completely) understood. By contrast the thermodynamic implications of quantum coherence, in the myriad guises it can arise, are still encountered in a somewhat piecemeal fashion and are lacking a (coherent!) unified and completely general framework. I will discuss some attempts to provide such a framework using tools of quantum information theory and to explain how thermodynamical constraints on the manipulation of quantum coherence arise.