Related papers: Attaining Carnot Efficiency with Quantum and Nanos…
We construct an example of heat engine whose efficiency at maximum power breaks down the previously derived bounds in the linear response regime. Such example takes a classical harmonic oscillator as the working substance undergoing a…
Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…
Efficiency and power are two central measures of the performance of thermal machines. We here study the power-efficiency-stability trade-off in a finite-time quantum Carnot information engine, in which an information reservoir replaces the…
The efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound. This bound follows from the second law of thermodynamics and is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the…
The optimal efficiency of quantum (or classical) heat engines whose heat baths are $n$-particle systems is given by the information geometry and the strong large deviation. We give the optimal work extraction process as a concrete…
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 long standing open problem whether a heat engine with finite power achieves the Carnot efficiency is investigated. We rigorously prove a general trade-off inequality on thermodynamic efficiency and time interval of a cyclic process with…
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…
The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot, it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper…
Since its inception about two centuries ago thermodynamics has sparkled continuous interest and fundamental questions. According to the second law no heat engine can have an efficiency larger than Carnot's efficiency. The latter can be…
A dynamical model of a highly efficient heat engine is proposed, where an applied temperature difference maintains the motion of particles around the circuit consisting of two asymmetric narrow channels, in one of which the current flows…
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…
The difference between quantum isoenergetic process and quantum isothermal process comes from the violation of the law of equipartition of energy in the quantum regime. To reveal an important physical meaning of this fact, here we study a…
A cyclic thermodynamic heat engine runs most efficiently if it is reversible. Carnot constructed such a reversible heat engine by combining adiabatic and isothermal processes for a system containing an ideal gas. Here, we present an example…
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…
Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…
According to the second law, the efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound that is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the total entropy does not…
We derive an efficiency bound for continuous quantum heat engines absorbing heat from squeezed thermal reservoirs. Our approach relies on a full-counting statistics description of nonequilibrium transport and it is not limited to the…
The Carnot cycle imposes a fundamental upper limit to the efficiency of a macroscopic motor operating between two thermal baths. However, this bound needs to be reinterpreted at microscopic scales, where molecular bio-motors and some…
Diverse models of engines energised by quantum-coherent, hence non-thermal, baths allow the engine efficiency to transgress the standard thermodynamic Carnot bound. These transgressions call for an elucidation of the underlying mechanisms.…