Thermodynamics at the Quantum limit
It is time that we look into the energy budget of processors which are nearing the limit of Moore's law validity. The problem however lies in our understanding of thermodynamics when it comes to the quantum limit. In particular for an isolated system it is not even known how to define temperature properly. On the contrary a single trapped and laser cooled ion reaches thermal distribution and it can be measured experimentally. The question then lies whether we can have same thermodynamics when we further cool the system into a quantum state (non-thermal).
