Related papers: Conversion of heat to work: An efficient inchworm
Heat rectifiers are systems that conduct heat asymmetrically for forward and reversed temperature gradients. Here, we present an analytical study of heat rectification in linear quantum systems. We demonstrate that asymmetric heat currents…
We investigate the decoherence properties of a central system composed of two spins 1/2 in contact with a spin bath. The dynamical regime of the bath ranges from a fully integrable integrable limit to complete chaoticity. We show that the…
Active fluctuations are known to play a significant role in the intracellular transport of passive objects. However, the effect of viscoelasticity of the environment in shaping such processes is relatively less understood. Here, with a…
We show by numerical simulations that the presence of nonlinear velocity-dependent friction forces can induce a finite net drift in the stochastic motion of a particle in contact with an equilibrium thermal bath and in an asymmetric…
Spontaneous motion of an oil droplet driven by chemical nonequilibricity is reported. It is shown that the droplet undergoes regular rhythmic motion under appropriately designed boundary conditions, whereas it exhibits random motion in an…
A simple model of the two-state ratchet type is proposed for molecular chemical engines that convert chemical free energy into mechanical work and vice versa. The engine works by catalyzing a chemical reaction and turning a rotor.…
We introduce heat engines working in the nano-regime that allow to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. We show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a…
We derive the long-time dynamics of a tracer immersed in a one-dimensional active bath. In contrast to previous studies, we find that the damping and noise correlations possess long-time tails with exponents that depend on the tracer…
For collections of particles in a thermal bath interacting with an asymmetric substrate, it is possible for a ratchet effect to occur where the particles undergo a net dc motion in response to an ac forcing. Ratchet effects have been…
The study of quantum thermodynamics is key to the development of quantum thermal machines. In contrast to most of the previous proposals based on discrete strokes, here we consider a working substance that is permanently coupled to two or…
Stochastic model of the Feynman-Smoluchowski ratchet is proposed and solved using generalization of the Fick-Jacobs theory. The theory fully captures nonlinear response of the ratchet to the difference of heat bath temperatures. The ratchet…
We describe how adiabatically rocked quantum electron ratchets can act as heat pumps. In general, ratchets may be described as non-equilibrium systems in which directed particle motion is generated using spatial or temporal asymmetry. In a…
We consider a minimal model of a quantum rotator composed of a single particle confined in an harmonic potential and driven by two temperature-biased heat reservoirs. In the case the particle potential is rendered asymmetric and rotated an…
The distinction between the damping coefficient and the effective non-linear mobility of driven particles in active micro-rheology of supercooled liquids is explained in terms of individual and collective dynamics. The effective mobility…
Human-created engines and evolutionarily optimized molecular motors exhibit sophisticated design in order to harvest chemical or thermal energy for generating unidirectional motion. The complexity of these motors makes their random…
Dry friction has been proposed as a rectifying mechanism allowing mass transport over a vibrating surface, even when vibrations are horizontal and unbiased. It has been suggested that the drift velocity will always saturate when the energy…
We report a new type of fluid-based driven dissipative oscillator system consisting of a lattice of millimetric fluid droplets bouncing on a vertically vibrating liquid bath and bound within an annular ring. We characterize the system…
We explore heat transfer in molecular junctions between two leads in the absence of a finite net thermal bias. The application of an unbiased, time-periodic temperature modulation of the leads entails a dynamical breaking of reflection…
We follow the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting self-propelled semi-flexible polymers in contact with a thermal bath. We characterize structure and dynamics of the passive system and as a function of the motor activity. We find that…
At molecular scales, fluctuations play a significant role and prevent biomolecular processes from always proceeding in a preferred direction, raising the question of how limited amounts of free energy can be dissipated to obtain directed…