Related papers: Dissipative heat engine is thermodynamically incon…
Engines are open systems that can generate work cyclically, at the expense of an external disequilibrium. They are ubiquitous in nature and technology, but the course of mathematical physics over the last 300 years has tended to make their…
We study the unitary time evolution of a simple quantum Hamiltonian describing a heat engine coupled to two heat baths. The engine is modeled as a three-level system. Each heat bath consists of a single harmonic oscillator. The engine is…
Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…
The optimal efficiency of quantum (or classical) heat engines whose heat baths are $n$-particle systems is given by the information geometry and the strong large deviation. We give the optimal work extraction process as a concrete…
Thermodynamic cycles are idealized processes that can convert heat into work or produce heat flow against a temperature gradient with the input of work. They remain an active area of research in modern stochastic thermodynamics. In…
A long standing open problem whether a heat engine with finite power achieves the Carnot efficiency is investigated. We rigorously prove a general trade-off inequality on thermodynamic efficiency and time interval of a cyclic process with…
We want to understand whether and to which extent the maximal (Carnot) efficiency for heat engines can be reached at a finite power. To this end we generalize the Carnot cycle so that it is not restricted to slow processes. We show that for…
The performance of one type (Carnot) of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cycle is analyzed within the framework of thermodynamic free energies. ICE performance is different from that of an External Combustion Engine (ECE) which is dictated…
In 1975, Courzon and Ahlborn studied a Carnot engine with thermal losses and got an expression for its efficiency that described better the performance of actual heat machines than the traditional result due to Carnot. In their original…
One of the key objectives in investigating small stochastic systems is the development of micrometer-sized engines and the understanding of their thermodynamics. However, the primary mathematical tool used for this purpose, the overdamped…
While Carnot's model engines demonstrate ideal performances regarding conversion efficiency, they cannot be actually used as energy converters since they are non causal systems. Such an unphysical behavior indeed restrains the working…
The name 'sorption heat engines' is proposed for simple negative entropy generators that are driven by thermal cycling and work on alternating adsorption and desorption. These generators are in general not explicitly recognized as heat…
The paper is grounded on the author's book '"Thermal Death" on the Earth and the scenario how to prevent it' (Moscow, URSS, 2009, bibl.571). While consuming energy, we finally practically all the produced energy is dissipated as heat. As…
We investigate the performance of a Brownian heat engine working in a heterogeneous thermal bath where the mobility fluctuates. Brownian particle is trapped by the time-dependent harmonic potential, by changing the stiffness coefficient and…
We consider the performance of periodically driven stochastic heat engines in the linear response regime. Reaching the theoretical bounds for efficiency and efficiency at maximum power typically requires full control over the design and the…
A new thermodynamic inequality is derived which leads to the maximum work that can be extracted from multi-heat baths with the assistance of discrete quantum feedback control. The maximum work is determined by the free-energy difference and…
Quantum heat engines employ as working agents multi-level systems instead of gas-filled cylinders. We consider particularly two-level agents such as electrons immersed in a magnetic field. Work is produced in that case when the electrons…
At the very foundation of the second law of thermodynamics lies the fact that no heat engine operating between two reservoires of temperatures $T_C\leq T_H$ can overperform the ideal Carnot engine: $\langle W \rangle / \langle Q_H \rangle…
We study the thermodynamic performance of the finite-time non-regenerative Stirling cycle used as a quantum heat engine. We consider specifically the case in which the working substance (WS) is a two-level system. The Stirling cycle is made…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamic cycle of a quantum heat engine carrying out an Otto thermodynamic cycle. We use the thermal properties of a moving heat bath with relativistic velocity with respect to the cold bath. As a working…