Related papers: Stochastic thermodynamic engines under time-varyin…
Theoretical treatments of periodically-driven quantum thermal machines (PD-QTMs) are largely focused on the limit-cycle stage of operation characterized by a periodic state of the system. Yet, this regime is not immediately accessible for…
We analyse non-equilibrium Carnot-like cycles built with a colloidal particle in a harmonic trap, which is immersed in a fluid that acts as a heat bath. Our analysis is carried out in the overdamped regime. The cycle comprises four…
The thermodynamic uncertainty relation expresses a universal trade-off between precision and entropy production, which applies in its original formulation to current observables in steady-state systems. We generalize this relation to…
We introduce a simple two-level heat engine to study the efficiency in the condition of the maximum power output, depending on the energy levels from which the net work is extracted. In contrast to the quasi-statically operated Carnot…
Heat engines transform thermal energy into useful work, operating in a cyclic manner. For centuries, they have played a key role in industrial and technological development. Historically, only gases and liquids have been used as working…
Stochastic heat engines are devices that generate work from random thermal motion using a small number of highly fluctuating degrees of freedom. Proposals for such devices have existed for more than a century and include the Maxwell demon…
The thermodynamics framework of an interacting quantum gas trapped by an arbitrary external potential is reviewed. We show that for each confining potential, in the thermodynamic limit, there emerge "generalized" volume and pressure…
A quantum-mechanical analog of the Carnot engine reversibly working at vanishing temperature, shortly termed the quantum-mechanical Carnot engine, is discussed. A general formula for the efficiency of such an engine with an arbitrary…
We analyze a steady-state thermoelectric engine, whose working substance consists of two capacitively coupled quantum dots. One dot is tunnel-coupled to a hot reservoir serving as a heat source, the other one to two electrically biased…
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…
Sequential (or collisional) engines have been put forward as an alternative candidate for the realisation of reliable engine setups. Despite this, the role of the different stages and the influence of the intermediate reservoirs is not well…
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…
We explore the dependence of the performance bounds of heat engines and refrigerators on the initial quantum state and the subsequent evolution of their piston, modeled by a quantized harmonic oscillator. Our goal is to provide a fully…
The autonomous heat engine is a model system of autonomous nonequilibrium systems like biological cells, exploiting nonequilibrium flow for operations. As the Carnot engine has essentially contributed to the equilibrium thermodynamics,…
A new universality in optimization of trade-off between power and efficiency for low-dissipation Carnot cycles is presented. It is shown that any trade-off measure expressible in terms of efficiency and the ratio of power to its maximum…
The energetics of a Brownian heat engine and heat pump driven by position dependent temperature, known as the B\"uttiker-Landauer heat engine and heat pump, is investigated by numerical simulations of the inertial Langevin equation. We…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a hallmark of equilibrium systems, typically characterized by a single critical point separating ordered and disordered phases. Recently, a novel class of non-equilibrium phase transitions was uncovered…
This thesis is devoted to the study of physical systems embedded within the field of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Specifically, the state of the systems of interest constitutes a stochastic process that can be externally driven by…
The statistical mechanical description of small systems staying in thermal equilibrium with an environment can be achieved by means of the Hamiltonian of mean force. In contrast to the reduced density matrix of an open quantum system, or…
We investigate maximum efficiency at a given power for low-dissipation heat engines. Close to maximum power, the maximum gain in efficiency scales as a square root of relative loss in power and this scaling is universal for a broad class of…