Related papers: Carnot's theorem and Szil\'ard engine
Carnot's theorem poses a fundamental limit on the maximum efficiency achievable from an engine that works between two reservoirs at thermal equilibrium. We extend this result to the case of arbitrary nonthermal stationary reservoirs, even…
The key question of this paper is whether work can be extracted from a heat engine by using purely quantum mechanical information. If the answer is yes, what is its mathematical formula? First, by using a bipartite memory we show that the…
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…
A quantum-mechanical analog of the Carnot engine reversibly working at vanishing temperature, shortly termed the quantum-mechanical Carnot engine, is discussed. A general formula for the efficiency of such an engine with an arbitrary…
Information can improve heat engine performance, but the underlying principles are still not so clear. Here we introduce a Carnot information machine (CIE) and obtain a quantitative relationship between the engine performance and…
Since its inception about two centuries ago thermodynamics has sparkled continuous interest and fundamental questions. According to the second law no heat engine can have an efficiency larger than Carnot's efficiency. The latter can be…
We present the exact theory of quantum engines whose working medium is a network of driven oscillators performing an arbitrary cyclic process while coupled to thermal and nonthermal reservoirs. We show that when coupled to a single…
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…
The Carnot theory is unique among the theories of heat developed before the emergence of thermodynamics because it considers the relationship between heat and work. The theory is contained in Carnot's book published in 1824, which includes…
An analysis of efficiency and its bounds at maximum work output for Carnot-like heat engines is conducted. The heat transfer processes are described by the linear law with time-dependent heat conductance. The upper bound of efficiency is…
In a classic thought experiment, Szilard suggested a heat engine where a single particle, for example an atom or a molecule, is confined in a container coupled to a single heat bath. The container can be separated into two parts by a…
We want to understand whether and to which extent the maximal (Carnot) efficiency for heat engines can be reached at a finite power. To this end we generalize the Carnot cycle so that it is not restricted to slow processes. We show that for…
Efficiency and power are two central measures of the performance of thermal machines. We here study the power-efficiency-stability trade-off in a finite-time quantum Carnot information engine, in which an information reservoir replaces the…
Carnot established in 1824 that the efficiency $\eta_{C}$ of reversible engines operating between a hot bath at absolute temperature $T_{hot}$ and a cold bath at temperature $T_{cold}$ is equal to $1-T_{cold}/T_{hot}$. Carnot particularly…
Here, we show the implementation of a complete cycle of a quantum engine fuelled by information. This engine is a quantum version of the Szilard engine, where information is used to extract heat from the environment and fully convert it…
We derive a bound on the efficiency of thermal engines that can be sharper than Carnot's limit. It is a function of statistical correlations between the engine internal state and Hamiltonian, can be saturated even in finite-time cycles, and…
For a general thermodynamic system described as a Markov process, we prove a general lower bound for dissipation in terms of the square of the heat current, thus establishing that nonvanishing current inevitably implies dissipation. This…
We construct a generic model for a heat engine using information theory concepts, attributing irreversible energy dissipation to the information transmission channels. Using several forms for the channel capacity, classical and quantum, we…
We present a computational model for Szilard's engine and the information discarding process. Taking advantage of a fact that the one is essentially the reversed cycle of the other, we can discuss the both by employing the same model.…
A Szilard Engine is a hypothetical device which is able to extract work from a single thermal reservoir by measuring the position of particles within the engine. We derive the amount of work that can be extracted from such a device in the…