Related papers: Efficiency at optimal work from finite reservoirs:…
The problem of inference is applied to the process of work extraction from two constant heat capacity reservoirs, when the thermodynamic coordinates of the process are not fully specified. The information that is lacking, includes both the…
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.…
We consider the standard thermodynamic processes with constraints, but with additional uncertainty about the control parameters. Motivated by inductive reasoning, we assign prior distribution that provides a rational guess about likely…
Temperature of a finite-sized system fluctuates due to the thermal fluctuations. However, a systematic mathematical framework for measuring or estimating the temperature is still underdeveloped. Here, we incorporate the estimation theory in…
Given a system with a finite heat capacity and a heat reservoir, and two values of initial temperatures, $T_+$ and $T_- (< T_+)$, we enquire, in which case the optimal work extraction is larger: when the reservoir is an infinite source at…
According to the second law of thermodynamics, for every transformation performed on a system which is in contact with an environment of fixed temperature, the extracted work is bounded by the decrease of the free energy of the system.…
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…
We derive the optimal estimates of the free energies of an arbitrary number of thermodynamic states from nonequilibrium work measurements; the work data are collected from forward and reverse switching processes and obey a fluctuation…
Optimization analyses of thermoelectric generators operation is of importance both for practical applications and theoretical considerations. Depending on the desired goal, two different strategies are possible to achieve high performance:…
We use the general formulation of irreversible thermodynamics and study the minimally nonlinear irreversible model of heat engines operating between a time-varying hot heat source of finite size and a cold heat reservoir of infinite size.…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a heat engine operating between two finite-sized reservoirs with well-defined temperatures. Within the linear response regime, it is found that the uniform temperature of the two reservoirs at…
In the real world, one almost never knows the parameters of a thermodynamic process to infinite precision. Reflecting this, here we investigate how to extend stochastic thermodynamics to systems with uncertain parameters, including…
We estimate the performance of Feynman's ratchet at given values of the ratio of cold to hot reservoir temperatures ($\theta$) and the figure of merit (efficiency in the case of engine and coefficienct of performance in the case of…
The work content of non-equilibrium systems in relation to a heat bath is often analyzed in terms of expectation values of an underlying random work variable. However, we show that when optimizing the expectation value of the extracted…
Thermodynamics teaches that if a system initially off-equilibrium is coupled to work sources, the maximum work that it may yield is governed by its energy and entropy. For finite systems this bound is usually not reachable. The maximum…
If the work per cycle of a quantum heat engine is averaged over an appropriate prior distribution for an external parameter $a$, the work becomes optimal at Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency. More general priors of the form $\Pi(a) \propto…
According to Thermodynamics, the efficiency of a heat engine is upper bounded by Carnot efficiency. For macroscopic systems, the Carnot efficiency is, however, achieved only for quasi static processes. And, considerable attention has been…
Observed efficiencies of industrial power plants are often approximated by the square-root formula: $1-\sqrt{T_-/T_+}$, where $T_+ (T_-)$ is the highest (lowest) temperature achieved in the plant. This expression can be derived within…
We discuss the efficiency of a heat engine operating in a nonequilibrium steady state maintained by two heat reservoirs. Within the general framework of linear irreversible thermodynamics we derive a universal upper bound on the efficiency…
We formulate the work output and efficiency for linear irreversible heat engines working between a finite-sized hot heat source and an infinite-sized cold heat reservoir until the total system reaches the final thermal equilibrium state…