Related papers: An endoreversible quantum heat engine driven by at…
The unavoidable irreversible losses of power in a heat engine are found to be of quantum origin. Following thermodynamic tradition a model quantum heat engine operating by the Otto cycle is analyzed. The working medium of the model is…
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…
We study a driven harmonic oscillator operating an Otto cycle between two thermal baths of finite size. By making extensive use of the tools of Gaussian quantum mechanics, we directly simulate the dynamics of the engine as a whole, without…
Heat engines usually operate by exchanging heat with thermal baths at different (positive) temperatures. Nonthermal baths may, however, lead to a significant performance boost. We here experimentally analyze the power output of a…
We investigate the thermodynamics and fluctuations of a finite-time quantum Otto engine alternatively driven by a hot squeezed and a cold thermal reservoir. We show that reservoir squeezing significantly enhances the performance by…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamic cycle of a quantum heat engine carrying out an Otto thermodynamic cycle. We use the thermal properties of a moving heat bath with relativistic velocity with respect to the cold bath. As a working…
We construct a quantum critical Otto engine that is powered by finite temperature baths. We show that the work output of the engine shows universal power law behavior that depends on the critical exponents of the working medium, as well as…
We study fluctuations in many-body quantum heat engines operating in the presence of collective system-bath interactions. We show that collective effects in open quantum systems can be harnessed to develop highly consistent many-body…
The reversible nature of thermodynamical cycles is an idealisation based on the assumption of perfect quasi-static dynamics. As a consequence of this assumption, ideal engines operate at the maximum efficiency but have zero power. Realistic…
We introduce a quantum heat engine performing an Otto cycle by using the thermal properties of the quantum vacuum. Since Hawking and Unruh, it has been established that the vacuum space, either near a black hole or for an accelerated…
The thermodynamic properties of quantum heat engines are stochastic owing to the presence of thermal and quantum fluctuations. We here experimentally investigate the efficiency and nonequilibrium entropy production statistics of a spin-1/2…
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…
For a four-stroke asymmetrically driven quantum Otto engine with working medium modeled by a single qubit, we study the bounds on non-equilibrium fluctuations of work and heat. We find strict relations between the fluctuations of work and…
Conventional continuous quantum heat engines with incoherent heat transfer perform poorly as they exploit two-body interactions between the system and hot or cold baths, thus having limited capability to outperform their classical…
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…
Heat engines constitute the major building blocks of modern technologies. However, conventional heat engines with higher power yield lesser efficiency and vice versa and respect various power-efficiency trade-off relations. This is also…
Quantum heat engines form an active field of research due to their potential applications. There are several phenomena that are unique to the quantum regime, some of which are known to give these engines an edge over their classical…
The concept of inner friction, by which a quantum heat engine is unable to follow adiabatically its strokes and thus dissipates useful energy, is illustrated in an exact physical model where the working substance consists of an ensemble of…
We consider a finite-time quantum Otto heat engine that consists of two isochoric (thermal-contact) process, where the system is alternatively coupled to a hot squeezed and a cold thermal reservoir, and two unitary driven strokes, where the…
The derivation of general performance benchmarks is important in the design of highly optimized heat engines and refrigerators. To obtain them, one may model phenomenologically the leading sources of irreversibility ending up with results…