Related papers: Stationary engines in and beyond the linear respon…

The maximum efficiency of autonomous engines with finite chemical potential difference is investigated. We show that without a particular type of singularity autonomous engines cannot attain the Carnot efficiency. In addition, we…

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…

We consider the performance of periodically driven stochastic heat engines in the linear response regime. Reaching the theoretical bounds for efficiency and efficiency at maximum power typically requires full control over the design and the…

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…

We study the maximum efficiency of a Carnot cycle heat engine based on a small system. It is revealed that due to the finiteness of the system, irreversibility may arise when the working substance contacts with a heat bath. As a result,…

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…

The widely debated feasibility of thermodynamic machines achieving Carnot efficiency at finite power has been convincingly dismissed. Yet, the common wisdom that efficiency can only be optimal in the limit of infinitely-slow processes…

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…

We investigate, in an analytical fashion, quantum Carnot cycles of a microscopic heat engine coupled to two nite heat reservoirs, whose internal cycles could own higher e ciency than the standard Carnot limit without consuming extra quantum…

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…

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…

Achieving the Carnot efficiency at finite power is a challenging problem in heat engines due to the trade-off relation between efficiency and power that holds for general heat engines. It is pointed out that the Carnot efficiency at finite…

We construct an example of heat engine whose efficiency at maximum power breaks down the previously derived bounds in the linear response regime. Such example takes a classical harmonic oscillator as the working substance undergoing a…

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…

The constraint relation for efficiency and power is crucial to design optimal heat engines operating within finite time. We find a universal constraint between efficiency and output power for heat engines operating in the low-dissipation…

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 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…

We study a thermal engine model for which Newton's cooling law is obeyed during heat transfer processes. The thermal efficiency and its bounds at maximum output power are derived and discussed. This model, though quite simple, can be…

The efficiency at maximum power (EMP) of irreversible Carnot-like heat engines is investigated based on the weak endoreversible assumption and the phenomenologically irreversible thermodynamics. It is found that the weak endoreversible…

A heat engine operating in the one-shot finite-size regime, where systems composed of a small number of quantum particles interact with hot and cold baths and are restricted to one-shot measurements, delivers fluctuating work. Further,…