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The performance of quantum heat engines is generally based on the analysis of a single cycle. We challenge this approach by showing that the total work performed by a quantum engine need not be proportional to the number of cycles.…
Various quantum systems are considered as the working substance for the analysis of quantum heat cycles and quantum refrigerators. The ongoing technological challenge is how efficiently can a heat engine convert thermal energy to mechanical…
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,…
Quantum thermal machines make use of non-classical thermodynamic resources, one of which is interactions between elements of the quantum working medium. In this paper, we examine the performance of a quasi-static quantum Otto engine based…
The laws of thermodynamics allow work extraction from a single heat bath provided that the entropy decrease of the bath is compensated for by another part of the system. We propose a thermodynamic quantum engine that exploits this principle…
We analyse non-equilibrium Carnot-like cycles built with a colloidal particle in a harmonic trap, which is immersed in a fluid that acts as a heat bath. Our analysis is carried out in the overdamped regime. The cycle comprises four…
We theoretically propose a quantum heat engine using a setup consisting of a ring-trapped Bose-Einstein condensate placed in a Fabry-P\'erot cavity where the optical field carries orbital angular momentum. We first show that the…
Quantum computers could perform certain tasks which no classical computer can perform in acceptable times. Josephson junction circuits can serve as building blocks of quantum computers. We discuss and compare two designs, which employ…
The reversible nature of thermodynamical cycles is an idealisation based on the assumption of perfect quasi-static dynamics. As a consequence of this assumption, ideal engines operate at the maximum efficiency but have zero power. Realistic…
We demonstrate a thermodynamic engine whose working substance is a sine-Gordon soliton in a heterogeneous current-driven Josephson junction. We show that solitons can act as thermodynamic working substances whose internal spectral structure…
The heat engine, a machine that extracts useful work from thermal sources, is one of the basic theoretical constructs and fundamental applications of classical thermodynamics. The classical description of a heat engine does not include…
We propose a scheme for a single-atom quantum heat engine based on ultra-cold atom technologies. Building on the high degree of control typical of cold atom systems, we demonstrate that three paradigmatic heat engines -- Carnot, Otto and…
A thermal current, generated by a temperature gradient between two reservoirs coupled to a carefully designed photonic or (micro-) electromechanical circuit, might induce non-conservative forces that impulse a mechanical degree of freedom…
We study a quantum Stirling cycle which extracts work using quantized energy levels of a potential well. The work and the efficiency of the engine depend on the length of the potential well, and the Carnot efficiency is approached in a low…
We show experimental results demonstrating multiple rounds of heat-bath algorithmic cooling in a 3 qubit solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor. By dynamically pumping entropy out of the system of interest and…
We introduce heat engines working in the nano-regime that allow to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. We show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a…
Quantum heat engines employ as working agents multi-level systems instead of gas-filled cylinders. We consider particularly two-level agents such as electrons immersed in a magnetic field. Work is produced in that case when the electrons…
Based on quantum thermodynamic processes, we make a quantum-mechanical (QM) extension of the typical heat engine cycles, such as the Carnot, Brayton, Otto, and Diesel cycles, etc. The temperature is not included in these QM engine cycles,…
Optimizing the performance of thermal machines is an essential task of thermodynamics. We here consider the optimization of information engines that convert information about the state of a system into work. We concretely introduce a…
A quantum heat engine of a specific type is studied. This engine contains a single particle confined in the infinite square well potential with variable width and consists of three processes: the isoenergetic process (which has no classical…