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The Carnot cycle imposes a fundamental upper limit to the efficiency of a macroscopic motor operating between two thermal baths. However, this bound needs to be reinterpreted at microscopic scales, where molecular bio-motors and some…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-02-03 Ignacio A. Martínez , Édgar Roldán , Luis Dinis , Dmitri Petrov , Juan M. R. Parrondo , Raúl A. Rica

We compute the efficiency of the reversible Stirling engine, with and without regeneration, for a broad class of working substances including Van der Waals fluids, quantum ideal gases (Bose and Fermi), Bose-Einstein condensates, thermal…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-04-20 Nikesh Lilani , Manus R. Visser

The condition for stationary engines to attain the Carnot efficiency in and beyond the linear response regime is investigated. We find that this condition for finite-size engines is significantly different from that for macroscopic engines…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-05-23 Naoto Shiraishi

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-05-28 Ramandeep S. Johal , Renuka Rai , Guenter Mahler

We derive general trade-off relations among the power, efficiency, and constancy for two-terminal thermoelectric systems in the linear response regime. Constancy, which quantifies the steadiness of the heat engine, is measured by its…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-04-09 Ousi Pan , Zhiqiang Fan , Shunjie Zhang , Liwei Chen , Jincan Chen , Shanhe Su

Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…

The efficiency of an heat engine is traditionally defined as the ratio of its average output work over its average input heat. Its highest possible value was discovered by Carnot in 1824 and is a cornerstone concept in thermodynamics. It…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-19 Gatien Verley , Tim Willaert , Christian Van den Broeck , Massimiliano Esposito

Johnson has shown [arXiv:1703.06119] that in the vicinity of a critical point the efficiency of a black hole heat engine can approach the Carnot efficiency while maintaining finite power. We characterize and extend this result in several…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2023-02-15 Maria C. DiMarco , Sierra L. Jess , Robie A. Hennigar , Robert B. Mann

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-08-03 George Thomas , Ramandeep S. Johal

We consider two specific thermodynamic cycles of engine operating in a finite time coupled to two thermal reservoirs with a finite heat capacity: The Carnot-type cycle and the Lorenz-type cycle. By means of the endo-reversible…

General Physics · Physics 2017-10-11 Ilki Kim , Hui Wan , Soumya S. Patnaik

The stochastic efficiency [G. Verley et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 4721 (2014)] was introduced to evaluate the performance of energy-conversion machines in micro-scale. However, such an efficiency generally diverges when no heat is absorbed while…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-03-02 Zhayu Fei , Jin-Fu Chen , Yu-Han Ma

We study the efficiency at maximum power, $\eta_m$, of irreversible quantum Carnot engines (QCEs) that perform finite-time cycles between a hot and a cold reservoir at temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$, respectively. For QCEs in the reversible…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-03-19 Jianhui Wang , Jizhou He , Zhaoqi Wu

Sadi Carnot's theorem regarding the maximum efficiency of heat engines is considered to be of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. This theorem famously states that the maximum efficiency depends only on the temperature of the heat…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-21 Mischa P. Woods , Nelly Ng , Stephanie Wehner

A dynamical model of a highly efficient heat engine is proposed, where an applied temperature difference maintains the motion of particles around the circuit consisting of two asymmetric narrow channels, in one of which the current flows…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-10-06 Giuliano Benenti , Giulio Casati , Fabio Marchesoni , Jiao Wang

Based on a quantum thermodynamic protocol for shortcut to isothermality that smoothly modify the system-reservoir interaction can significantly speed up an isothermal process while keeping the overall dissipation constant [Phys. Rev. X. 10,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-11-15 Yanchao Zhang , Shuang Wang

We derive the statistics of the efficiency under the assumption that thermodynamic fluxes fluctuate with normal law, parametrizing it in terms of time, macroscopic efficiency, and a coupling parameter $\zeta$. It has a peculiar behavior: No…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-02-19 Matteo Polettini , Gatien Verley , Massimiliano Esposito

We evaluate the efficiency at maximum power of a quantum-dot Carnot heat engine. The universal value of the coefficients at the linear and quadratic order in the temperature gradient are reproduced. Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency is recovered in…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-05-14 Massimiliano Esposito , Ryoichi Kawai , Katja Lindenberg , Christian Van den Broeck

Thermostatics of CARNOT engines has been extended by more recent research based on endo-reversible model. Our model assumes exo-reversibility but endo-irreversibility to determine new upper-bound to thermomechanical conversion. We propose a…

Classical Physics · Physics 2021-07-07 Michel Feidt , Renaud Feidt

We study the efficiency at maximum power, $\eta^*$, of engines performing finite-time Carnot cycles between a hot and a cold reservoir at temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$, respectively. For engines reaching Carnot efficiency $\eta_C=1-T_c/T_h$…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-05-19 Massimiliano Esposito , Ryoichi Kawai , Katja Lindenberg , Christian Van den Broeck

Using the fluctuation theorem supplemented with geometric arguments, we derive universal features of the (long-time) efficiency fluctuations for thermal and isothermal machines operating under steady or periodic driving, close or far from…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-11-26 Gatien Verley , Tim Willaert , Christian Van den Broeck , Massimiliano Esposito