Related papers: Maximum efficiency of steady-state heat engines at…

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…

The Carnot engine sets an upper limit to the efficiency of a practical heat engine. An arbitrary irreversible engine is sometimes believed to behave closely as the Curzon-Ahlborn engine. Efficiency of the latter is obtained commonly by…

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.…

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…

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…

We investigate maximum efficiency at a given power for low-dissipation heat engines. Close to maximum power, the maximum gain in efficiency scales as a square root of relative loss in power and this scaling is universal for a broad class of…

We analyze the efficiency of thermal engines (either quantum or classical) working with a single heat reservoir like atmosphere. The engine first gets an energy intake, which can be done in arbitrary non-equilibrium way e.g. combustion of…

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…

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…

Power and efficiency are fundamental criteria for evaluating the performance of thermodynamic cycles. However, it is generally impossible to maximize both simultaneously. In particular, achieving maximum efficiency inevitably leads to…

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.…

The Carnot theorem, one expression of the second law of thermodynamics, places a fundamental upper bound on the efficiency of heat engines operating between two heat baths. The Carnot theorem can be stated in a more generalized form for…

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…

We introduce a simple two-level heat engine to study the efficiency in the condition of the maximum power output, depending on the energy levels from which the net work is extracted. In contrast to the quasi-statically operated Carnot…

We propose a generalized model of a heat engine and calculate the minimum and maximum bounds on the efficiency at maximum power. We obtain a universal form of generalized extreme bounds on the efficiency at maximum power. Our model unifies…

Carnot efficiency sets a fundamental upper bound on the heat engine efficiency, attainable in the quasi-static limit, albeit at the cost of completely sacrificing power output. In this Letter, we present a minimal heat engine model that can…

The Carnot heat engine sets an upper bound on the efficiency of a heat engine. As an ideal, reversible engine, a single cycle must be performed in infinite time, and so the Carnot engine has zero power. However, there is nothing in…

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 provide a consistent thermodynamic analysis of stochastic thermal engines driven by finite-size reservoirs, which are in turn coupled to infinite-size reservoirs. We consider a cyclic operation mode, where the working medium couples…

The Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency has long served as the definite upper bound for the thermal efficiency at maximum output power, and has thus shaped the development of finite-time thermodynamics. In this paper, we repeal the ruling consensus…