Related papers: Thermodynamic cycles with active matter
Active constituents burn fuel to sustain individual motion, giving rise to collective effects that are not seen in systems at thermal equilibrium, such as phase separation with purely repulsive interactions. There is a great potential in…
The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…
Advances in experimental techniques enable the precise manipulation of a large variety of active systems, which constantly dissipate energy to sustain nonequilibrium phenomena without any equilibrium equivalent. To design novel materials…
The investigation of optimal processes has a long history in the field of thermodynamics. It is well known that finite-time processes that minimize dissipation often exhibit discontinuities. We use a combination of numerical and analytical…
Power and efficiency are fundamental criteria for evaluating the performance of thermodynamic cycles. However, it is generally impossible to maximize both simultaneously. In particular, achieving maximum efficiency inevitably leads to…
Active matter represents a class of non-equilibrium systems that constantly dissipate energy to produce directed motion. The thermodynamic control of active matter holds great potential for advancements in synthetic molecular motors,…
We study microscopic engines that use a single active particle as their "working medium". Part of the energy required to drive the directed motion of the particle can be recovered as work, even at constant temperature. A wide class of…
Because of its nonequilibrium character, active matter in a steady state can drive engines that autonomously deliver work against a constant mechanical force or torque. As a generic model for such an engine, we consider systems that contain…
We consider the optimization of a finite-time Carnot engine characterized by small dissipations. We bound the power with a simple inequality and show that the optimal strategy is to perform small cycles around a given working point, which…
Active matter is rapidly becoming a key paradigm of out-of-equilibrium soft matter exhibiting complex collective phenomena, yet the thermodynamics of such systems remain poorly understood. In this letter we study the nonequilbrium…
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…
Fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities become non-negligible and play an important role when the system size is small. We develop finite-time thermodynamics of fluctuations in microscopic heat engines whose environmental temperature and…
A central goal of thermodynamics is to identify optimal processes during which the least amount of energy is dissipated into the environment. Generally, even for simple systems, such as the parametric harmonic oscillator, optimal control…
The realization of efficient micro-machines built from active matter requires precise thermodynamic control far from equilibrium. Despite theoretical progress, the focus on single-parameter driving, coupled with strict theoretical…
Colloidal heat engines extract power out of a fluctuating bath by manipulating a confined tracer. Considering a self-propelled tracer surrounded by a bath of passive colloids, we optimize the engine performances based on the maximum…
Self-propulsion allows living systems to display unusual collective behavior. Unlike passive systems in thermal equilibrium, active matter systems are not constrained by conventional thermodynamic laws. A question arises however as to what…
A fundamental problem in modern thermodynamics is how a molecular-scale machine performs useful work, while operating away from thermal equilibrium without excessive dissipation. To this end, we derive a friction tensor that induces a…
We study thermodynamic processes in contact with a heat bath that may have an arbitrary time-varying periodic temperature profile. Within the framework of stochastic thermodynamics, and for models of thermo-dynamic engines in the idealized…
We introduce an alternative route for obtaining reliable cyclic engines, based on interacting Brownian particles under time-periodic drivings. General expressions for the thermodynamic fluxes, such as power and heat, are obtained using the…
The minimal set of thermodynamic control parameters consists of a statistical (thermal) and a mechanical one. These suffice to introduce all the pertinent thermodynamic variables; thermodynamic processes can then be defined as paths on this…