Related papers: Correlation-enhanced Stability of Microscopic Cycl…
We study a quantum Otto cycle that uses a 2-qubit working substance whose Hamiltonian does not commute with itself at different times during unitary strokes. We investigate how the cycle responds to the loss of quantum adiabaticity when…
In a stochastic heat engine driven by a cyclic non-equilibrium protocol, fluctuations in work and heat give rise to a fluctuating efficiency. Using computer simulations and tools from large deviation theory, we have examined these…
The laws of thermodynamics strongly restrict the performance of thermal machines. Standard thermodynamics, initially developed for uncorrelated macroscopic systems, does not hold for microscopic systems correlated with their environments.…
We study a quantum heat engine at strong coupling between the system and the thermal reservoirs. Exploiting a collective coordinate mapping, we incorporate system-reservoir correlations into a consistent thermodynamic analysis, thus…
Active matter constantly dissipates energy to power the self-propulsion of its microscopic constituents. This opens the door to designing innovative cyclic engines without any equilibrium equivalent. We offer a consistent thermodynamic…
We study the thermodynamics of two-stroke heat engines where two bosonic modes $a$ and $b$ are coupled by the general nonlinear interaction $V_{\theta} = \exp {(\theta a^{\dagger n}b^m -\theta^* a^n b^{\dagger m})}$. By adopting the…
Thermodynamic uncertainty relation, quantifying a trade-off among average current, the associated fluctuation (precision), and entropy production (cost), has been formulated in nonequilibrium steady state and various stochastic systems.…
We apply advanced methods of control theory to open quantum systems and we determine finite-time processes which are optimal with respect to thermodynamic performances. General properties and necessary conditions characterizing optimal…
Autonomous entanglement engines have recently been proposed to generate steady-state bipartite and multipartite entanglement exploiting only incoherent interactions with thermal baths at different temperatures. In this work, we investigate…
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…
We study a quantum Otto engine embedding a working substance composed by a two-level system interacting with a harmonic mode. The physical properties of the substance are described by a generalized quantum Rabi model arising in…
Quantization of energy is a quintessential characteristic of quantum systems. Here we analyze its effects on the operation of Otto cycle heat machines and show that energy quantization alone may alter and increase machine performance in…
The construction of efficient thermal engines operating at finite times constitutes a fundamental and timely topic in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We introduce a strategy for optimizing the performance of Brownian engines, based on a…
Miniaturized heat engines constitutes a fascinating field of current research. They are being studied theoretically as well as experimentally, with experiments involving colloidal particles and harmonic traps and even bacterial baths acting…
Quantum coherence has been shown to impact the operational capabilities of quantum systems performing thermodynamic tasks in a significant way, and yet the possibility and conditions for genuine coherence-enhanced thermodynamic operation…
We study how a quantum heat engine based on a single trapped ion performs in finite time. The always-on thermal environment acts like the hot bath, while the motional degree of freedom of the ion plays the role of the effective cold bath.…
Thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs) place strict bounds on the fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities in terms of the associated entropy production. In this work we identify the tightest (and saturable) matrix-valued TUR that can…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a heat engine operating between two finite-sized reservoirs with well-defined temperatures. Within the linear response regime, it is found that the uniform temperature of the two reservoirs at…
Given a quantum heat engine that operates in a cycle that reaches maximal efficiency for a time-dependent Hamiltonian H(t) of the working substance, with overall controllable driving H(t) = g(t) H, we study the deviation of the efficiency…
The efficiency of microscopic heat engines in a thermally heterogenous environment is considered. We show that, as a consequence of the recently discovered entropic anomaly, quasi-static engines, whose efficiency is maximal in a fluid at…