Related papers: Revisiting the quantum Szilard engine with fully q…
We address the question of verifying the quantumness of thermal machines. A Szil\'ard engine is truly quantum if its work output cannot be described by a local hidden state (LHS) model, i. e. an objective local statistical ensemble.…
In a quantum Stirling heat engine, the heat exchanged with two thermal baths is partly utilized for performing work by redistributing the energy levels of the working substance. We analyze the thermodynamics of a quantum Stirling engine…
We propose an autonomous quantum heat engine based on the thermally driven oscillation of a single electron shuttle. The electronic degree of freedom of this device acts as an internal dynamical controller which switches the interaction of…
Generalized measurements may allow the control of its back-action on the quantum system by interpolating from a very weak to strong projective action. Such a measurement can fuel a quantum heat engine or extract work depending on the…
We establish the path integral approach for the time-dependent heat exchange of an externally driven quantum system coupled to a thermal reservoir. We derive the relevant influence functional and present an exact formal expression for the…
The quantum engine cycle serves as an analogous representation of the macroscopic nature of heat engines and the quantum regime of thermal devices composed of a single element. In this work, we follow the formalism of a quantum engine…
Quantum heat engines are subjected to quantum fluctuations related to their discrete energy spectra. Such fluctuations question the reliable operation of quantum engines in the microscopic realm. We here realize an endoreversible quantum…
We study the heat statistics of a quantum Brownian motion described by the Caldeira-Leggett model. By using the path integral approach, we introduce a novel concept of the quantum heat functional along every pair of Feynman paths. This…
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…
Temperature determines the relative probability of observing a physical system in an energy state when that system is energetically in equilibrium with its environment. In this paper, we present a theory for engineering the temperature of a…
We discuss the possibility of extraction of energy from a single heat bath in a cyclic process, under some special initial conditions. We give an explicit example in which a system initially prepared in a microcanonical ensemble, is able to…
Recently, Zhang {\em et al.} [PRA, {\bf 75}, 062102 (2007)] extended Kieu's interesting work on the quantum Otto engine [PRL, {\bf 93}, 140403 (2004)] by considering as working substance a bipartite quantum system $AB$ composed of…
Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…
It is possible to extract work from a quantum-mechanical system whose dynamics is governed by a time-dependent cyclic Hamiltonian. An energy bath is required to operate such a quantum engine in place of the heat bath used to run a…
The so-called information-thermodynamics link created by a thought experiment of Szilard became a core of the modern orthodoxy in the field of quantum information and resources theory in quantum thermodynamics. We remind existing objections…
There exist two formulations for quantum heat engine that models an energy transfer between two microscopic systems. One is semi-classical scenario, and the other is full quantum scenario. The former is formulated as a unitary evolution for…
We introduce a quantum heat engine performing an Otto cycle by using the thermal properties of the quantum vacuum. Since Hawking and Unruh, it has been established that the vacuum space, either near a black hole or for an accelerated…
A key quantity characterizing a time-periodically forced quantum system coupled to a heat bath is the energy flowing in the steady state through the system into the bath, where it is dissipated. We derive a general expression which allows…
The quantum heat engines have drawn much attention due to miniaturization of devices recently. We study the dynamics of the quantum Otto heat engine using the driven-dissipative Schr\"{o}dinger equation. Starting from different initial…
In 1929, Leo Szilard invented a feedback protocol in which a hypothetical intelligence called Maxwell's demon pumps heat from an isothermal environment and transduces it to work. After an intense controversy that lasted over eighty years;…