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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…
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…
In the present paper, we study the power output and efficiency of overdamped stochastic thermodynamic engines that are in contact with a heat bath having a temperature that varies periodically with time. This is in contrast to most of the…
In Markovian dynamics with the local detailed balance condition, we decompose the total entropy production rate into microscopic transitions. By applying this decomposition to the heat to work conversion process, we rigorously show that the…
We investigate fluctuations of output work for a class of Stirling heat engines with working fluid composed of interacting units and compare these fluctuations to an average work output. In particular, we focus on engine performance close…
Despite its idealizations, thermodynamics has proven its power as a predictive theory for practical applications. In particular, the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency provides a benchmark for any real engine operating at maximal power. Here we…
The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot, it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper…
We study the possibility of achieving the Carnot efficiency in a finite-power underdamped Brownian Carnot cycle. Recently, it was reported that the Carnot efficiency is achievable in a general class of finite-power Carnot cycles in the…
The concepts of weighted reciprocal of temperature and weighted thermal flux are proposed for a heat engine operating between two heat baths and outputting mechanical work. With the aid of these two concepts, the generalized thermodynamic…
Thermoelectric generators are particularly suitable to investigate the irreversible processes which govern the coupled transport of matter and heat in solid-state systems. We study the efficiency at maximum power in the strong coupling…
A specific class of stochastic heat engines driven cyclically by time-dependent potential, which is defined in the half-line ($0<x<+\infty$), is analysed. For such engines, most of their physical quantities can be obtained explicitly,…
We consider a three-stroke engine in the microscopic regime, where the working body of the engine is composed of a two-level system. The working body of the engine aims to withdraw heat from the hot heat bath, generate work, and discharge…
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…
The maximum power of Feynman's ratchet as a heat engine and the corresponding efficiency ($\eta_\ast$) are investigated by optimizing both the internal parameter and the external load. When a perfect ratchet device (no heat exchange between…
We analyze the efficiency of thermal engines (either quantum or classical) working with a single heat reservoir like atmosphere. The engine first gets an energy intake, which can be done in arbitrary non-equilibrium way e.g. combustion of…
We present the spin quantum Otto machine under different optimization criterion when function either as a heat engine or a refrigerator. We examine the optimal performance of the heat engine and refrigerator depending on their efficiency,…
We present a detailed study of a three-level quantum heat engine operating at maximum efficient power function, a trade-off objective function defined by the product of the efficiency and power output of the engine. First, for near…
We study the ratio between the variances of work output and heat input, $\eta^{(2)}$, for a class of four-stroke heat engines which covers various typical cycles. Recent studies on the upper and lower bounds of $\eta^{(2)}$ are based on the…
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.…
The figure of merit for refrigerators performing finite-time Carnot-like cycles between two reservoirs at temperature $T_h$ and $T_c$ ($<T_h$) is optimized. It is found that the coefficient of performance at maximum figure of merit is…