Related papers: Isolated quantum heat engine
As a quantum device, a quantum heat engine (QHE) is described by a Hermitian Hamiltonian.However, since it is an open system, reservoirs have to be imposed phenomenologically without any description in the context of quantum mechanics. A…
Owing to the ubiquity of synchronization in the classical world, it is interesting to study its behavior in quantum systems. Though quantum synchronisation has been investigated in many systems, a clear connection to quantum technology…
Algebraic methods for solving time dependent Hamiltonians are used to investigate the performance of quantum thermal machines. We investigate the thermodynamic properties of an engine formed by two coupled q-bits, performing an Otto cycle.…
Entangled states are an important resource for quantum information processing and for the fundamental understanding of quantum physics. An intriguing open question would be whether entanglement can improve the performance of quantum heat…
We study a driven harmonic oscillator operating an Otto cycle between two thermal baths of finite size. By making extensive use of the tools of Gaussian quantum mechanics, we directly simulate the dynamics of the engine as a whole, without…
The efficiency of a quantum heat engine is maximum when the unitary strokes are adiabatic. On the other hand, this may not be always possible due to small energy gaps in the system, especially at the critical point where the gap vanishes.…
We consider a finite one-dimensional chain of quantum rotors interacting with a set of thermal baths at different temperatures. When the interaction between the rotors is made chiral, such a system behaves as an autonomous thermal motor,…
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…
The key question of this paper is whether work can be extracted from a heat engine by using purely quantum mechanical information. If the answer is yes, what is its mathematical formula? First, by using a bipartite memory we show that the…
Quantum heat engines form an active field of research due to their potential applications. There are several phenomena that are unique to the quantum regime, some of which are known to give these engines an edge over their classical…
We review recent theoretical work on thermoelectric energy harvesting in multi-terminal quantum-dot setups. We first discuss several examples of nanoscale heat engines based on Coulomb-coupled conductors. In particular, we focus on quantum…
Conventional continuous quantum heat engines with incoherent heat transfer perform poorly as they exploit two-body interactions between the system and hot or cold baths, thus having limited capability to outperform their classical…
The treatment of quantum thermodynamic systems beyond weak coupling is of increasing relevance, yet extremely challenging. The evaluation of thermodynamic quantities in strong-coupling regimes requires a nonperturbative knowledge of the…
Theoretical treatments of periodically-driven quantum thermal machines (PD-QTMs) are largely focused on the limit-cycle stage of operation characterized by a periodic state of the system. Yet, this regime is not immediately accessible for…
The fundamentals of a quantum heat engine are derived from first principles. The study is based on the equation of motion of a minimum set of operators which is then used to define the state of the system. The relation between the quantum…
We propose the use of a quantum thermal machine for low-temperature thermometry. A hot thermal reservoir coupled to the machine allows for simultaneously cooling the sample while determining its temperature without knowing the…
Thermodynamics dictates that the specific heat of a system is strictly non-negative. However, in finite classical systems there are well known theoretical and experimental cases where this rule is violated, in particular finite atomic…
Thermoelectric effects, such as the generation of a particle current by a temperature gradient, have their origin in a reversible coupling between heat and particle flows. These effects are fundamental probes for materials and have…
The three-level system represents the smallest quantum system capable of autonomous cycling in quantum heat engines. This study proposes a method to simulate the steady-state dynamics of a three-level quantum heat engine by designing and…
We study a quantum Stirling cycle which extracts work using quantized energy levels of a potential well. The work and the efficiency of the engine depend on the length of the potential well, and the Carnot efficiency is approached in a low…