Related papers: Experimental Realization of a Minimal Microscopic …
The construction of efficient thermal engines operating at finite times constitutes a fundamental and timely topic in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We introduce a strategy for optimizing the performance of Brownian engines, based on a…
For students familiar with equilibrium statistical mechanics, the notion of a positive specific heat, being intimately related to the idea of stability, is both intuitively reasonable and mathematically provable. However, for system in…
We construct the smallest possible self contained heat engines; one composed of only two qubits, the other of only a single qutrit. The engines are self-contained as they do not require external sources of work and/or control. They are able…
We study the unitary time evolution of a simple quantum Hamiltonian describing a heat engine coupled to two heat baths. The engine is modeled as a three-level system. Each heat bath consists of a single harmonic oscillator. The engine is…
Small quantum systems non-weakly coupled to a bath become in the quantum regime surrounded by a cloud of photons or phonons, which modifies their thermodynamic behavior. Exactly solvable examples are the Brownian motion of a quantum…
We investigate stochastic thermodynamics of a two-particles Langevin system. Each particle is in contact with a heat bath at different temperatures $T_1$ and $T_2~(<T_1)$, respectively. Particles are trapped by a harmonic potential and…
We study heat transport in transistor-like devices composed of two reservoirs and a gate electrode, with a ballistic electronic one-dimensional system connected between the two reservoirs and interacting with a laser field. We derive in a…
We analyze an autonomous thermoelectric engine composed of two superconducting qubits coupled to separate heat baths and connected by a Josephson junction. Work and heat are process quantities and not observables of the engine quantum…
There exist two formulations for quantum heat engine that models an energy transfer between two microscopic systems. One is semi-classical scenario, and the other is full quantum scenario. The former is formulated as a unitary evolution for…
The energetics of a Brownian heat engine and heat pump driven by position dependent temperature, known as the B\"uttiker-Landauer heat engine and heat pump, is investigated by numerical simulations of the inertial Langevin equation. We…
Near-field heat engines are devices that convert the evanescent thermal field supported by a primary source into usable mechanical energy. By analyzing the thermodynamic performance of three-body near-field heat engines, we demonstrate that…
For heat engines working between two heat baths, functionality is often conditioned on a set of fixed constraints such as given internal structure of the engine and given temperatures for the baths. It is, however, important to devise heat…
We investigate a kinetic heat engine model constituted by particles enclosed in a box where one side acts as a thermostat and the opposite side is a piston exerting a given pressure. Pressure and temperature are varied in a cyclical…
We introduce a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems, the simplest of quantum mechanical systems, undergoing quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths, respectively, at…
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.…
We obtain macroscopic isothermal thermodynamic transformations by space-time scalings of a microscopic Hamiltonian dynamics in contact with a heat bath. The microscopic dynamics is given by a chain of anharmonic oscillators subject to a…
The study of quantum thermodynamics is key to the development of quantum thermal machines. In contrast to most of the previous proposals based on discrete strokes, here we consider a working substance that is permanently coupled to two or…
Standard heat machines (engine, heat pump, refrigerator) are composed of a system ("working fluid") coupled to at least two equilibrium baths at different temperatures and periodically driven by an external device (piston or rotor) called…
We consider a Brownian particle confined by an external potential and subject to stochastic resetting to the origin. Motivated by the repetitive nature of the dynamics, we describe the process as a thermodynamic cycle of thermal expansion…
Heat engines that convert thermal energy into work are a cornerstone of classical thermodynamics and remain an active area of contemporary research. Notable examples include microscopic heat engines, trade-off relations between power and…