Related papers: Thermodynamic principles and implementations of qu…
Heat engines near the adiabatic limit typically assume a working medium at thermal equilibrium. However, quantum many-body systems often showcase conservation laws that hinder thermalization, leading to prethermalization in exotic…
Quantum thermal machines offer promising platforms for exploring the fundamental limits of thermodynamics at the microscopic scale. The previous study demonstrated that the incorporation of a catalyst can significantly enhance the…
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…
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…
Starting with Carnot engine, the ideal efficiency of a heat engine has been associated with quasi-static transformations and vanishingly small output power. Here, we exactly calculate the thermodynamic properties of a isothermal heat…
Combining two disparate lines of thought like thermodynamics and quantum mechanics yields surprising results. The resulting idea of quantum thermodynamic engines holds promise for harvesting novel sources of energy of purely quantum origin,…
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…
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…
We consider both Otto and Diesel heat engine cycles running upon the working substances modeled by the van der Waals fluid as a simple non-ideal gas model. We extensively perform the efficiency study in these model engines. Then we find…
Theoretical treatments of periodically-driven quantum thermal machines (PD-QTMs) are largely focused on the limit-cycle stage of operation characterized by a periodic state of the system. Yet, this regime is not immediately accessible for…
Quantum thermodynamics with microscopic inelastic scattering processes has been intensively investigated in recent years. Here, we apply quantum master equation combined with full counting statistics approach to investigate the role of…
We construct a quantum critical Otto engine that is powered by finite temperature baths. We show that the work output of the engine shows universal power law behavior that depends on the critical exponents of the working medium, as well as…
We present a detailed study of a three-level quantum heat engine operating at maximum efficient power function, a trade-off objective function defined by the product of the efficiency and power output of the engine. First, for near…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
The quantum engine cycle serves as an analogous representation of the macroscopic nature of heat engines and the quantum regime of thermal devices composed of a single element. In this work, we follow the formalism of a quantum engine…
We apply advanced methods of control theory to open quantum systems and we determine finite-time processes which are optimal with respect to thermodynamic performances. General properties and necessary conditions characterizing optimal…
Quantum heat engines form an active field of research due to their potential applications. There are several phenomena that are unique to the quantum regime, some of which are known to give these engines an edge over their classical…
The triumph of heat engines is their ability to convert the disordered energy of thermal sources into useful mechanical motion. In recent years, much effort has been devoted to generalizing thermodynamic notions to the quantum regime,…
Recent theoretical and experimental studies in quantum heat engines show that, in the quasi-static regime, it is possible to have higher efficiency than the limit imposed by Carnot, provided that engineered reservoirs are used. The…
Thermodynamics is traditionally concerned with systems comprised of a large number of particles. Here we present a framework for extending thermodynamics to individual quantum systems, including explicitly a thermal bath and work-storage…