Related papers: Incompatibility between Carnot efficiency and fini…
We demonstrate that the efficiency of effective negative temperature-based quantum Otto engines, already known to outperform their traditional counterparts operating with positive-temperature thermal reservoirs, can be further improved by…
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…
A single driven spin is investigated as the working substance of a six-stroke irreversible quantum Carnot cycle. The role of inner friction associated with the finite-time adiabatic transformations on the cycle efficiency and the harvested…
We propose the minimally nonlinear irreversible heat engine as a new general theoretical model to study the efficiency at the maximum power $\eta^*$ of heat engines operating between the hot heat reservoir at the temperature $T_h$ and the…
We evaluate the role of quantum coherence as a thermodynamic resource in a noisy, Markovian, one-qubit heat engine. By consuming the coherence of noisy quantum states, we demonstrate that the engine can surpass the classical efficiency…
Stochastic thermodynamics has revolutionized our understanding of heat engines operating in finite time. Recently, numerous studies have considered the optimal operation of thermodynamic cycles acting as heat engines with a given profile in…
Recent advances in experimental control of colloidal systems have spurred a revolution in the production of mesoscale thermodynamic devices. Functional "textbook" engines, such as the Stirling and Carnot cycles, have been produced in…
Various quantum systems are considered as the working substance for the analysis of quantum heat cycles and quantum refrigerators. The ongoing technological challenge is how efficiently can a heat engine convert thermal energy to mechanical…
Similar to the energy flowing process in traditional heat engines, information could be considered to flow in the communication systems with the form of energy and entropy. Combining the thermodynamic Carnot machine and the classical…
The context of the present paper is stochastic thermodynamics - an approach to nonequilibrium thermodynamics rooted within the broader framework of stochastic control. In contrast to the classical paradigm of Carnot engines, we herein…
Fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities become non-negligible and play an important role when the system size is small. We develop finite-time thermodynamics of fluctuations in microscopic heat engines whose environmental temperature and…
The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot, it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper…
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…
Dealing with a generic time-local non-Markovian master equation, we define current and power to be process-dependent as in classical thermodynamics. Each process is characterized by a symmetry transformation, a gauge of the master equation,…
Stochastic thermodynamics allows us to define heat and work for microscopic systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium, based on observations of their stochastic dynamics. However, a complete account of the energetics necessitates that all…
In stochastic thermodynamics, the entropy production of a thermodynamic system is defined by the irreversibility measured by the logarithm of the ratio of the path probabilities in the forward and reverse processes. We derive the relation…
The entropy production rate is central to the study of non-equilibrium systems. This parameter is closely connected to violation of time-reversal symmetry, energy consumption, efficiency, and other properties of interest; in short, it…
One of the main issues that real energy converters present, when they produce effective work, is the inevitable entropy production. Within the context of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics, entropy production tends to energetically degrade…
Continuous particle exchange thermal machines require no time-dependent driving, can be realised in solid-state electronic devices, and miniaturised to nanometre scale. Quantum dots, providing a narrow energy filter and allowing to…
We study a molecular engine constituted by a gas of $N \sim 10^2$ molecules enclosed between a massive piston and a thermostat. The force acting on the piston and the temperature of the thermostat are cyclically changed with a finite period…