Related papers: Cycling tames power fluctuations near optimum effi…
Brownian heat engines use local temperature gradients in asymmetric potentials to move particles against an external force. The energy efficiency of such machines is generally limited by irreversible heat flow carried by particles that make…
The full optimization of a quantum heat engine requires operating at high power, high efficiency, and high stability (i.e. low power fluctuations). However, these three objectives cannot be simultaneously optimized - as indicated by the…
From synthetic active devices such as self-propelling Janus colloids to micro-organisms like bacteria, micro-algae, living cells in tissues, active fluctuations are ubiquitous. Thermodynamics of small systems involving thermal as well as…
Two testable schemes for quantum heat engines are investigated under the quantization framework of noncommutative (NC) quantum mechanics (QM). By identifying the phenomenological connection between the phase-space NC driving parameters and…
In the last ten years, a number of ``Conventional Fluctuation Theorems'' have been derived for systems with deterministic or stochastic dynamics, in a transient or in a non-equilibrium stationary state. These theorems gave explicit…
Quantum heat engines are commonly believed to achieve their optimal efficiency only when operated quasi-statically. When running at finite power, however, they suffer effective friction due to the generation of coherences and transitions…
The concept of thermal machines has evolved from the canonical steam engine to the recently proposed nanoscopic quantum systems as working fluids. The latter obey quantum open system dynamics and frequently operate in non-equilibrium…
In Markovian dynamics with the local detailed balance condition, we decompose the total entropy production rate into microscopic transitions. By applying this decomposition to the heat to work conversion process, we rigorously show that the…
We experimentally demonstrate a nano-scale stochastic Stirling heat engine operating in the underdamped regime. The setup involves an optically levitated silica particle that is subjected to a power-varying optical trap and periodically…
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…
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…
We investigate the stochastic dynamics of a thermal machine realized by a fast-driven Otto cycle. By employing a stochastic approach, we find that system coherences strongly affect fluctuations depending on the thermodynamic current.…
From an entropy-based formulation of the first law of thermodynamics in the quantum regime, we investigate the performance of Otto-like and Carnot-like engines for a single-qubit working medium. Within this framework, the first law includes…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a heat engine operating between two finite-sized reservoirs with well-defined temperatures. Within the linear response regime, it is found that the uniform temperature of the two reservoirs at…
We investigate the efficiency at maximum power (EMP) of irreversible quantum Carnot engines that perform finite-time cycles between two temperature tunable baths. The temperature form we adopt can be experimentally realized in squeezed…
In the quest for high-performance quantum thermal machines, looking for an optimal thermodynamic efficiency is only part of the issue. Indeed, at the level of quantum devices, fluctuations become extremely relevant and need to be taken into…
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,…
Following the result by Skrzypczyk et al., arXiv:1009.0865, that certain self-contained quantum thermal machines can reach Carnot efficiency, we discuss the functioning of self-contained quantum thermal machines and show, in a very general…
We derive the exact equality, referred to as the fluctuation relation for heat engines (FRHE), that relates statistics of heat extracted from one of the two heat baths and the work per one cycle of a heat engine operation. Carnot's…
We optimize finite-time stochastic heat engines with a periodically scaled Hamiltonian under experimentally motivated constraints on the bath temperature $T$ and the scaling parameter $\lambda$. We present a general geometric proof that…