Violation of the second law of thermodynamics in the quantum microworld

One of the previously reported linear models of open quantum systems (inter acting with a single thermal bath but otherwise not aided from outside) end owed with the faculty of spontaneous self-organization challenging standard thermodynamics is reconstructed here. It is then able to produce, in a cyc lic manner, a useful (this time mechanical) work at the cost of just therma l energy in the bath whose quanta get properly in-phased. This means perpet uum mobile of the second kind explicitly violating the second law in its Th omson formulation. No approximations can be made responsible for the effect as a special scaling procedure is used that makes the chosen kinetic theor y exact. The effect is purely quantum and disappears in the classical limit . (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.