This book explores some of the connections between dissipative and quantum effects from a theoretical point of view. It focuses on three main topics: the relation between synchronization and quantum correlations, the thermodynamical properties of fluctuations, and the performance of quantum thermal machines. Dissipation effects have a profound impact on the behavior and properties of quantum systems, and the unavoidable interaction with the surrounding environment, with which systems continuously exchange information, energy, angular momentum and matter, is ultimately responsible for decoherence phenomena and the emergence of classical behavior. However, there is a wide intermediate regime in which the interplay between dissipative and quantum effects gives rise to a plethora of rich and striking phenomena that has just started to be understood. In addition, the recent breakthrough techniques in controlling and manipulating quantum systems in the laboratory have made this phenomenology accessible in experiments and potentially applicable.

The Les Houches Summer School in August 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a wide range of topics. Modern quantum optomechanics was born in the late 1970s in the framework of gravitational wave interferometry, with an initial focus on the quantum limits of displacement measurements. Carlton Caves, Vladimir Braginsky, and others realized that the sensitivity of the anticipated large-scale gravitational-wave interferometers (GWI) was fundamentally limited by the quantum fluctuations of the measurement laser beam. After tremendous experimental progress, the sensitivity of the upcoming next generation of GWI will effectively be limited by quantum noise. In this way, quantum-optomechanical effects will directly affect the operation of what is arguably the world's most impressive precision experiment. However, optomechanics has also gained a life of its own with a focus on the quantum aspects of moving mirrors. Laser light can be used to cool mechanical resonators well below the temperature of its environment. After proof-of-principle demonstrations of this cooling in 2006, a number of systems were used as the field gradually merged with its condensed matter cousin (nanomechanical systems) to try to reach the mechanical quantum ground state, eventually demonstrated in 2010 by pure cryogenic techniques and just one year later by a combination of cryogenic and radiation-pressure cooling. The book covers all aspects — historical, theoretical, experimental — of the field, with its applications to quantum measurement, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. It is an essential read for any new researcher in the field.

Quantum Thermodynamics is a novel research field which explores the emergence of thermodynamics from quantum theory and addresses thermodynamic phenomena which appear in finite-size, non-equilibrium and finite-time contexts. Blending together elements from open quantum systems, statistical mechanics, quantum many-body physics, and quantum information theory, it pinpoints thermodynamic advantages and barriers emerging from genuinely quantum properties such as quantum coherence and correlations. Owing to recent experimental efforts, the field is moving quickly towards practical applications, such as nano-scale heat devices, or thermodynamically optimised protocols for emergent quantum technologies. Starting from the basics, the present volume reviews some of the most recent developments, as well as some of the most important open problems in quantum thermodynamics. The self-contained chapters provide concise and topical introductions to researchers who are new to the field. Experts will find them useful as a reference for the current state-of-the-art. In six sections the book covers topics such as quantum heat engines and refrigerators, fluctuation theorems, the emergence of thermodynamic equilibrium, thermodynamics of strongly coupled systems, as well as various information theoretic approaches including Landauer's principle and thermal operations. It concludes with a section dedicated to recent quantum thermodynamics experiments and experimental prospects on a variety of platforms ranging from cold atoms to photonic systems, and NV centres.

Understanding non-equilibrium properties of classical and quantum many-particle systems is one of the goals of contemporary statistical mechanics. Besides its own interest for the theoretical foundations of irreversible thermodynamics(e.g. of the Fourier's law of heat conduction), this topic is also relevant to develop innovative ideas for nanoscale thermal management with possible future applications to nanotechnologies and effective energetic resources. The first part of the volume (Chapters 1-6) describes the basic models, the phenomenology and the various theoretical approaches to understand heat transport in low-dimensional lattices (1D e 2D). The methods described will include equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, hydrodynamic and kinetic approaches and the solution of stochastic models. The second part (Chapters 7-10) deals with applications to nano and microscale heat transfer, as for instance phononic transport in carbon-based nanomaterials, including the prominent case of nanotubes and graphene. Possible future developments on heat flow control and thermoelectric energy conversion will be outlined. This volume aims at being the first step for graduate students and researchers entering the field as well as a reference for the community of scientists that, from different backgrounds (theoretical physics, mathematics, material sciences and engineering), has grown in the recent years around those themes.

Proceedings -- Parallel Computing.

Methods in Computational Physics, Volume 15: Vibrational Properties of Solids explores the application of computational methods to delineate microscopic vibrational behavior. This book is composed of nine chapters that further illustrate the utility of these methods to ordered lattices, quantum solids, impurity modes, surface modes, and amorphous solids. The opening chapters present the basic theoretical models and their computational aspects for different solids of diverse chemical nature, together with some methods of automation and computation in the highly sophisticated experiments in inelastic scattering of neutrons. These topics are followed by a discussion on how group theoretical methods treated by computers can yield the proper symmetry assignments of phonon eigenvalues and eigenstates. Considerable chapters are devoted to the different applications of traditional lattice dynamics, each having its own computational ramification. Other chapters survey the properties of solids that mostly involve integrations over the Brillouin zone. The last chapter concerns the dynamic or time-dependent aspect of lattice dynamics, namely, the calculation of thermal and electric conductivities in some models of solids. This book is of great benefit to geoscientists, physicists, and mathematicians.

Understanding network vulnerabilities in order to protect networks from external and internal threats is vital to the world's economy and should be given the highest priority. This volume discusses topics such as network security, information security and coding.