Related papers: When is a quantum heat engine quantum?
Quantum thermodynamics addresses the emergence of thermodynamical laws from quantum mechanics. The link is based on the intimate connection of quantum thermodynamics with the theory of open quantum systems. Quantum mechanics inserts…
Quantum heat engines provide attractive means in quantum thermodynamics for studying the fundamentals of the flow of heat and work. Previous experimental implementations of heat engines operating at the level of a few excitation quanta have…
We consider quantum heat engines that operate between nonequilibrium stationary reservoirs. We evaluate their maximum efficiency from the positivity of the entropy production and show that it can be expressed in terms of an effective…
The Dicke-Hubbard model, describing an ensemble of interacting atoms in a cavity, provides a rich platform for exploring collective quantum phenomena. However, its potential for quantum thermodynamic applications remains largely uncharted.…
Thermodynamic constraints impose a trade-off between power and efficiency in heat engines, preventing the simultaneous achievement of high power and high efficiency. For classical microscopic engines, explicit inequalities have been…
Coherent interconversion between optical and mechanical excitations in an optomechanical cavity can be used to engineer a quantum heat engine. This heat engine is based on an Otto cycle between a cold photonic reservoir and a hot phononic…
Relativistic quantum systems exhibit unique features not present at lower energies, such as the existence of both particles and antiparticles, and restrictions placed on the system dynamics due to the light cone. In order to understand what…
Sequential (or collisional) engines have been put forward as an alternative candidate for the realisation of reliable engine setups. Despite this, the role of the different stages and the influence of the intermediate reservoirs is not well…
Understanding how coherence of quantum systems affects thermodynamic quantities, such as work and heat, is essential for harnessing quantumness effectively in thermal quantum technologies. Here, we study the unique contributions of quantum…
We propose a quantum Otto cycle based on the properties of a two-level system in a realistic out-of-thermal-equilibrium electromagnetic field acting as its sole reservoir. This steady configuration is produced without the need of active…
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…
We study the 1-d isotropic Heisenberg model of two spin-1/2 systems as a quantum heat engine. The engine undergoes a four-step Otto cycle where the two adiabatic branches involve changing the external magnetic field at a fixed value of the…
We study an Otto heat machine whose working substance is a single two-level system interacting with a cold thermal reservoir and with a squeezed hot thermal reservoir. By adjusting the squeezing or the adiabaticity parameter (the…
Dynamical phases are obtained for a quantum thermal engine, whose working medium is a single harmonic oscillator. The dynamics of this engine is obtained by using four steps where in two steps the time dependent frequency is changing. In…
The rate of temperature decrease of a cooled quantum bath is studied as its temperature is reduced to the absolute zero. The III-law of thermodynamics is then quantified dynamically by evaluating the characteristic exponent {\zeta} of the…
By using a laser and maser in tandem, it is possible to obtain laser action in the hot exhaust gases involved in heat engine operation. Such a "quantum afterburner" involves the internal quantum states of working gas atoms or molecules as…
Stability is an important property of small thermal machines with fluctuating power output. We here consider a finite-time quantum Carnot engine based on a degenerate multilevel system and study the influence of its finite Hilbert space…
Unlike classical systems, a measurement performed on a quantum system always alters its state. In this work, the impacts of two diagnostic schemes to determine the performance of quantum Otto heat engines are compared: In one scheme, the…
We study the thermoelectric properties and heat-to-work conversion performance of an interacting, multi-level quantum dot (QD) weakly coupled to electronic reservoirs. We focus on the sequential tunneling regime. The dynamics of the charge…
From the steam engine to current nano-devices, the design of efficient thermal machines has been instrumental in modern societies. In its essence a thermal engine can be thought as a working substance, in contact with two or more baths,…