Related papers: Irreversible thermodynamic analysis and applicatio…
The fundamentals of a quantum heat engine are derived from first principles. The study is based on the equation of motion of a minimum set of operators which is then used to define the state of the system. The relation between the quantum…
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.…
For an understanding of a heat engine working in the microscopic scale, it is often necessary to estimate the amount of reversible work extracted by isothermal expansion of the quantum gas used as its working substance. We consider an…
We develop a geometric framework to describe the thermodynamics of microscopic heat engines driven by slow periodic temperature variations and modulations of a mechanical control parameter. Covering both the classical and the quantum…
It is a central question in quantum thermodynamics to determine how irreversible is a process that transforms an initial state $\rho$ to a final state $\sigma$, and whether such irreversibility can be thought of as a useful resource. For…
We discuss the thermodynamics of closed quantum systems driven out of equilibrium by a change in a control parameter and undergoing a unitary process. We compare the work actually done on the system with the one that would be performed…
The derivation of general performance benchmarks is important in the design of highly optimized heat engines and refrigerators. To obtain them, one may model phenomenologically the leading sources of irreversibility ending up with results…
In this work we include, for the Carnot cycle, irreversibilities of linear finite rate of heat transferences between the heat engine and its reservoirs, heat leak between the reservoirs and internal dissipations of the working fluid. A…
In this paper, we consider a model of two-level quantum heat engine to investigate the explicit analytic expression for the thermodynamics quantities in different condition under the finite-time operation. In this engine, the working…
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…
A quantum engine fueled by quantum measurement is proposed. Under the finite-time adiabatic driving regime, the conversion of heat to work is realized without the compression and expansion of the resonance frequency. The work output,…
Heat engines are fundamental physical objects to develop nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The thermodynamic performance of the heat engine is determined by the choice of cycle and time-dependence of parameters. Here, we propose a systematic…
We study the minimally nonlinear irreversible heat engines in which the time-reversal symmetry for the systems may b e broken. The expressions for the power and the efficiency are derived, in which the effects of the nonlinear terms due to…
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 argue that thermal machines can be understood from the perspective of `virtual qubits' at `virtual temperatures': The relevant way to view the two heat baths which drive a thermal machine is as a composite system. Virtual qubits are…
This Colloquium is a fast journey through the build-up of key thermodynamical concepts, i.e. work, heat and irreversibility -- and how they relate to information. Born at the time of industrial revolution to optimize the exploitation of…
The relationship between thermodynamics and statistical physics is valid in the thermodynamic limit - when the number of particles becomes very large. Here, we study thermodynamics in the opposite regime - at both the nano scale, and when…
Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…
The laws of thermodynamics strongly restrict the performance of thermal machines. Standard thermodynamics, initially developed for uncorrelated macroscopic systems, does not hold for microscopic systems correlated with their environments.…
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…