In thermodynamic resource theories, the most popular set of free operations is the thermal operation, assuming access to any energy-preserving unitaries between the system and the bath. However, the real implementation of such operations is improbable due to their generality. We show that catalysts, auxiliary states that assist the evolution while retaining their state, are extremely useful in boosting more experiment-friendly operations to approach usual thermal operations: when catalysts can be chosen arbitrarily, thermal operations with catalysts can be completely emulated; even when catalysts are restricted to be in easy-to-prepare states, the advantage remains significant. We also provide some intuition on why catalysts are useful.

※ 줌회의실: 개별 공지