Related papers: Autonomous implementation of thermodynamic cycles …
We consider nano-sized artificial or biological machines working in steady state enforced by imposing non-equilibrium concentrations of solutes or by applying external forces, torques or electric fields. For unicyclic and strongly coupled…
Self-assembly kinetics is usually described by approaches which assume that the shape of the aggregates has a definite form (e.g., spherical, cylindrical, cubic, etc), however that is unlikely to be the case in many finite-sized…
Synthetic nanoscale complexes capable of mechanical movement are often studied theoretically using discrete-state models that involve instantaneous transitions between metastable states. A number of general results have been derived within…
The context of the present paper is stochastic thermodynamics - an approach to nonequilibrium thermodynamics rooted within the broader framework of stochastic control. In contrast to the classical paradigm of Carnot engines, we herein…
We study the unitary time evolution of a simple quantum Hamiltonian describing a heat engine coupled to two heat baths. The engine is modeled as a three-level system. Each heat bath consists of a single harmonic oscillator. The engine is…
According to the laws of thermodynamics, no heat engine can beat the efficiency of a Carnot cycle. This efficiency traditionally comes with vanishing power output and practical designs, optimized for power, generally achieve far less.…
Single-molecule stretching experiments are widely utilized within the fields of physics and chemistry to characterize the mechanics of individual bonds or molecules, as well as chemical reactions. Analytic relations describing these…
We investigate a model of a stochastic engine operating cyclically at constant bath temperature, which consists of an overdamped Brownian harmonic oscillator that plays the role of working substance and is elastically coupled to an active…
We analyze an electronic nanoscale thermal machine driven by time-dependent environment: besides bias and gate voltage variations, we consider also the less prevailing time modulation of the couplings between leads and dot. We provide…
In this paper, we analyze the total work extracted and the efficiency of the magnetic Otto cycle in its classic and quantum versions. As a general result, we found that the work and efficiency of the classical engine is always greater than…
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…
The laws of thermodynamics put limits to the efficiencies of thermal machines. Analogues of these laws are now established for quantum engines weakly and passively coupled to the environment providing a framework to find improvements to…
Experience collected in mesoscopic dynamic modeling of externally driven systems indicates absence of potentials that could play role of equilibrium or nonequilibrium thermodynamic potentials yet their thermo-dynamics-like modeling is often…
We study the performance of a quantum Otto cycle using a harmonic work medium and undergoing collisional dynamics with finite-size reservoirs. We span the dynamical regimes of the work strokes from strongly non-adiabatic to quasi-static…
There are many exotic thermodynamic processes that are hard to study in nature. Here, we synthesize a structured environment to explore the extremes of thermodynamics. We present an engine running at extreme temperatures of above ten…
A short introduction on quantum thermodynamics is given and three new topics are discussed: 1) Maximal work extraction from a finite quantum system. The thermodynamic prediction fails and a new, general result is derived, the ``ergotropy''.…
Heat engines are fundamental physical objects to develop nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The thermodynamic performance of the heat engine is determined by the choice of cycle and time-dependence of parameters. Here, we propose a systematic…
Fluctuations strongly affect the dynamics and functionality of nanoscale thermal machines. Recent developments in stochastic thermodynamics have shown that fluctuations in many far-from-equilibrium systems are constrained by the rate of…
We model the dynamics of a closed quantum system brought out of mechanical equilibrium, undergoing a non-driven, spontaneous, thermodynamic transformation. In particular, we consider a quantum particle in a box with a moving and insulating…
According to classical Boltzmannian thermodynamics, the efficiency of a cyclic machine is strictly lower than one. Such a result is a straightforward consequence of the second principle of thermodynamics. Recent advances in the study of the…