Related papers: Quantum Heat Engines with Carnot Efficiency at Max…
Carnot efficiency sets a fundamental upper bound on the heat engine efficiency, attainable in the quasi-static limit, albeit at the cost of completely sacrificing power output. In this Letter, we present a minimal heat engine model that can…
The Carnot cycle is a prototype of ideal heat engine to draw mechanical energy from the heat flux between two thermal baths with the maximum efficiency, dubbed as the Carnot efficiency $\eta_{\mathrm{C}}$. Such efficiency can only be…
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…
In a quantum Stirling heat engine, the heat exchanged with two thermal baths is partly utilized for performing work by redistributing the energy levels of the working substance. We analyze the thermodynamics of a quantum Stirling engine…
We study the efficiency of a simple quantum dot heat engine at maximum power. In contrast to the quasi-statically operated Carnot engine whose efficiency reaches the theoretical maximum, recent research on more realistic engines operated in…
Based on quantum thermodynamic processes, we make a quantum-mechanical (QM) extension of the typical heat engine cycles, such as the Carnot, Brayton, Otto, and Diesel cycles, etc. The temperature is not included in these QM engine cycles,…
A quantum heat engine of a specific type is studied. This engine contains a single particle confined in the infinite square well potential with variable width and consists of three processes: the isoenergetic process (which has no classical…
The performance of quantum heat engines is generally based on the analysis of a single cycle. We challenge this approach by showing that the total work performed by a quantum engine need not be proportional to the number of cycles.…
After a brief historical perspective, we introduce the key notions of work and heat for quantum systems, to then apply them to quantum engines operating on quantum Otto and Carnot cycles. The irreversible and dissipative character of the…
Performance of nano- and micro-scale heat engines can be improved with a help from quantum mechanical phenomena. Recently, heat reservoirs with quantum coherence have been proposed to enhance engine performance beyond the Carnot limit even…
Sadi Carnot's theorem regarding the maximum efficiency of heat engines is considered to be of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. This theorem famously states that the maximum efficiency depends only on the temperature of the heat…
We consider a class of quantum heat engines consisting of two subsystems interacting via a unitary transformation and coupled to two separate baths at different temperatures $T_h > T_c$. The purpose of the engine is to extract work due to…
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…
Quantum thermal machines make use of non-classical thermodynamic resources, one of which is interactions between elements of the quantum working medium. In this paper, we examine the performance of a quasi-static quantum Otto engine based…
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…
The quantum engine cycle serves as an analogous representation of the macroscopic nature of heat engines and the quantum regime of thermal devices composed of a single element. In this work, we follow the formalism of a quantum engine…
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…
For heat engines working between two heat baths, functionality is often conditioned on a set of fixed constraints such as given internal structure of the engine and given temperatures for the baths. It is, however, important to devise heat…
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 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…