Driven Brownian particle as a paradigm for a nonequilibrium heat bath: Effective temperature and cyclic work extraction
Statistical Mechanics
2017-06-07 v1
Abstract
We apply the concept of a frequency-dependent effective temperature based on the fluctuation-dissipation ratio to a driven Brownian particle in a nonequilibrium steady state. Using this system as a thermostat for a weakly coupled harmonic oscillator, the oscillator thermalizes according to a canonical distribution at the respective effective temperature across the entire frequency spectrum. By turning the oscillator from a passive "thermometer" into a heat engine, we realize the cyclic extraction of work from a single thermal reservoir, which is feasible only due to its nonequilibrium nature.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1705.00877,
title = {Driven Brownian particle as a paradigm for a nonequilibrium heat bath: Effective temperature and cyclic work extraction},
author = {Robert Wulfert and Michael Oechsle and Thomas Speck and Udo Seifert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.00877},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
Phys. Rev. E (RC), in press