Related papers: Efficiency bounds for nonequilibrium heat engines
Since its inception about two centuries ago thermodynamics has sparkled continuous interest and fundamental questions. According to the second law no heat engine can have an efficiency larger than Carnot's efficiency. The latter can be…
We present a new outlook on the climate system thermodynamics, studying some of its macroscopic properties in terms of the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. We review and clarify the notion of efficiency of the climate system by…
Power and efficiency of heat engines are two conflicting objectives, and a tight efficiency bound is expected to give insights on the fundamental properties of the power-efficiency tradeoff. Here we derive an upper bound on the efficiency…
We propose a two-stage cycle for an optimized linear-irreversible heat engine that operates, in a finite time, between a hot (cold) reservoir and a finite auxiliary system acting as a sink (source) in the first (second) stage. Under the…
The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…
The efficiency of macroscopic heat engines is restricted by the second law of thermodynamics. They can reach at most the efficiency of a Carnot engine. In contrast, heat currents in mesoscopic heat engines show fluctuations. Thus, there is…
We study the efficiency at maximum power of two coupled heat engines, using thermoelectric generators (TEGs) as engines. Assuming that the heat and electric charge fluxes in the TEGs are strongly coupled, we simulate numerically the…
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…
The efficiency of microscopic heat engines in a thermally heterogenous environment is considered. We show that, as a consequence of the recently discovered entropic anomaly, quasi-static engines, whose efficiency is maximal in a fluid at…
We study the efficiency of a simple quantum dot heat engine at maximum power. In contrast to the quasi-statically operated Carnot engine whose efficiency reaches the theoretical maximum, recent research on more realistic engines operated in…
Following the result by Skrzypczyk et al., arXiv:1009.0865, that certain self-contained quantum thermal machines can reach Carnot efficiency, we discuss the functioning of self-contained quantum thermal machines and show, in a very general…
The condition for stationary engines to attain the Carnot efficiency in and beyond the linear response regime is investigated. We find that this condition for finite-size engines is significantly different from that for macroscopic engines…
The efficiency at maximum power (EMP) of irreversible Carnot-like heat engines is investigated based on the weak endoreversible assumption and the phenomenologically irreversible thermodynamics. It is found that the weak endoreversible…
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…
We consider two specific thermodynamic cycles of engine operating in a finite time coupled to two thermal reservoirs with a finite heat capacity: The Carnot-type cycle and the Lorenz-type cycle. By means of the endo-reversible…
We investigate stochastic thermodynamics of a two-particles Langevin system. Each particle is in contact with a heat bath at different temperatures $T_1$ and $T_2~(<T_1)$, respectively. Particles are trapped by a harmonic potential and…
The Carnot-like heat engines are classified into three types (normal-, sub- and super-dissipative) according to relations between the minimum irreversible entropy production in the "isothermal" processes and the time for completing those…
We quantify the prior information to infer the optimal characteristics for a constrained thermodynamic process of maximum work extraction for a pair of non-identical finite systems. The total entropy of the whole system remains conserved.…
A heat engine operating in the one-shot finite-size regime, where systems composed of a small number of quantum particles interact with hot and cold baths and are restricted to one-shot measurements, delivers fluctuating work. Further,…
We study the efficiency at maximum power of non-adiabatic dissipative (internally dissipative friction in finite time adiabatic processes) Carnot-like heat engines operate in finite time under the power law dissipation regime. We find that…