Entropy production in a photovoltaic cell

We evaluate entropy production in a photovoltaic cell that is modeled by four electronic levels resonantly coupled to thermally populated field modes at different temperatures. We use a formalism recently proposed, the so-called multiple parallel worlds, to consistently address the nonlinearity of entropy in terms of density matrix. Our result shows that entropy production is the difference between two flows: a semiclassical flow that linearly depends on occupational probabilities, and another flow that depends nonlinearly on quantum coherence and has no semiclassical analog. We show that entropy production in the cells depends on environmentally induced decoherence time and energy detuning. We characterize regimes where reversal flow of information takes place from a cold to hot bath. Interestingly, we identify a lower bound on entropy production, which sets limitations on the statistics of dissipated heat in the cells.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Introduction

Fordham International Law Journal\u27s special issue on Islamic law includes articles that present a broad variety of themes, from the historical to the contemporary, from the philosophical to the empirical, and from the theoretical to the practical. In light of the generally poor understanding of Islamic law among American lawyers, one can only hope that a publication such as this succeeds in generating greater intellectual curiosity about Islamic law among readers of American law journals. The authors hope that this collection of Articles will lead to renewed interest in Islamic law and theology as intellectually gratifying topics of inquiry in themselves, in addition to any relevance they may or may not have for transient political circumstances. A cardinal virtue of the lawyer is the ability to extract herself from her own circumstances and view a problem from the perspective of another party, oftentimes an adversary. Hopefully, this special issue will help generate further understanding by affording non-experts in Islamic law an opportunity to better comprehend some of the issues engaging Muslim jurists and theologians in this era