Quantum mechanics is compatible with scenarios where the relative order between two events can be indefinite. Here we show that two independent instances of a noisy process can behave as a perfect quantum communication channel when used in a coherent superposition of two alternative orders. This phenomenon occurs even if the original process has zero capacity to transmit quantum information. In contrast, perfect quantum communication does not occur when the message is sent directly from the sender to the receiver through a superposition of alternative paths, with an independent noise process acting on each path. The possibility of perfect quantum communication through independent noisy channels highlights a fundamental difference between the superposition of orders in time and the superposition of paths in space.

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Presence of correlations among the constituent quantum systems has a great relevance in thermodynamics. Significant efforts have been devoted to investigate the role of correlations in work extraction, among others. Here, we derive a bound on the difference between global and local extractable work by unitary operations (ergotropic gap), for bipartite separable states. Violation of this bound necessarily certifies the presence of entanglement. This gap is shown to be a monotone under LOCC assisted state transformations for pure bipartite quantum states. Our criterion has an implication in witnessing the dimension of a bipartite quantum state, with same local dimensions. On the other hand, our result gives an operational meaning to the Nielsen-Kempe disorder criterion. We also propose a schematic model to realize the separability bound experimentally and to detect entanglement for a restricted class of quantum states.

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