Related papers: A spin heat engine coupled to a harmonic-oscillato…
The fluctuation-dissipation relation for the classical definition of work is extended to thermally isolated systems, in classical and quantum realms. From this, the optimal work variance is calculated, showing it achieves its minimum…
In this work, we analyze an Otto-type cycle operating with a working substance composed of a quantum harmonic oscillator (QHO). Unlike other studies in which the work extraction is done by varying the frequency of the QHO and letting it…
We investigate the rectification of thermal fluctuations in a mesoscopic on-chip heat engine. The engine consists of a hot chaotic cavity capacitively coupled to a cold cavity which rectifies the excess noise and generates a directed…
A specific class of stochastic heat engines driven cyclically by time-dependent potential, which is defined in the half-line ($0<x<+\infty$), is analysed. For such engines, most of their physical quantities can be obtained explicitly,…
Hybrid quantum systems exhibiting coupled optical, spin, and mechanical degrees of freedom can serve as a platform for sensing, or as a bus to mediate interactions between qubits with disparate energy scales. These systems are also creating…
We study heat transport in quantum spin systems analytically and numerically. First, we demonstrate that heat current through a two-level quantum spin system can be modulated from zero to a finite value by tuning a magnetic field. Second,…
We study the stochastic energetic exchanges in quantum heat engines. Due to microreversibility, these obey a fluctuation relation, called the heat engine fluctuation relation, which implies the Carnot bound: no machine can have an…
We study the efficiency fluctuations of a stochastic heat engine made of $N$ interacting unicyclic machines and undergoing a phase transition in the macroscopic limit. Depending on $N$ and on the observation time, the machine can explore…
We consider Mott insulators driven by periodic coherent laser radiation, using both single orbital and multi-orbital models, noting that the latter is of more interest in solid state systems. We derive general expressions for the resulting…
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,…
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…
We consider a single-level quantum dot coupled to two leads which are ferromagnetic in general. Apart from tunneling processes conserving electron spin, we also include processes associated with spin-flip of tunneling electrons, which…
We introduce a model of an active quantum particle and discuss its properties. The particle has a set of internal states that mediate exchanges of heat with external reservoirs. Heat is then converted into motion by means of a spin-orbit…
We propose a two-terminal spin-orbit interferometer with a hot molecule inserted in one of its arms to generate pure spin currents. Local heating is achieved by coupling the vibrational modes of the molecule to a third (phononic) reservoir.…
We study spin-dependent heat transport in quantum gases, focusing on transport phenomena related to pure spin currents and spin-dependent temperatures. Using the Boltzmann equation, we compute the coupled spin and heat transport…
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…
We study the thermoelectric response of a device containing a pair of helical edge states contacted at the same temperature $T$ and chemical potential $\mu$ and connected to an external reservoir, with different chemical potential and…
We study the statistics of the efficiency in a class of isothermal cyclic machines with realistic coupling between the internal degrees of freedom. We derive, under fairly general assumptions, the probability distribution function for the…
We study experimentally the thermal fluctuations of energy input and dissipation in a harmonic oscillator driven out of equilibrium, and search for Fluctuation Relations. We study transient evolution from the equilibrium state, together…
A colloidal particle embedded in a fluid can be used as a microscopic heat engine by means of a sequence of cyclic transformations imposed by an optical trap. We investigate a model for the operation of such kind of Brownian engines when…