Related papers: Surpassing Carnot efficiency with relativistic mot…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamical properties of localised relativistic quantum fields, and how they can be used as quantum thermal machines. We study the efficiency and power of energy transfer between the classical gravitational…
Classically, the power generated by an ideal thermal machine cannot be larger than the Carnot limit. This profound result is rooted in the second law of thermodynamics. A hot question is whether this bound is still valid for microengines…
The concept of thermal machines has evolved from the canonical steam engine to the recently proposed nanoscopic quantum systems as working fluids. The latter obey quantum open system dynamics and frequently operate in non-equilibrium…
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the development of techniques which transfer trapped particles to very low temperatures. Here we focus our attention on a heating mechanism which contributes to the finite temperature limit…
Quantum systems typically reach thermal equilibrium rather quickly when coupled to a thermal environment. The usual way of bounding the speed of this process is by estimating the spectral gap of the dissipative generator. However the gap,…
We develop a perturbation theory of quantum (and classical) master equations with slowly varying parameters, applicable to systems which are externally controlled on a time scale much longer than their characteristic relaxation time. We…
We introduce a quantum heat engine performing an Otto cycle by using the thermal properties of the quantum vacuum. Since Hawking and Unruh, it has been established that the vacuum space, either near a black hole or for an accelerated…
The problem of black body radiation, when measured by a moving observer, has a pivotal role in relativistic thermodynamics. Mutually, it depends on the thermodynamical definition of the thermal equilibrium and temperature of moving bodies,…
How long does a uniformly rotating observer need to interact with a quantum field in order to register an approximately thermal response due to the circular motion Unruh effect? We address this question for a massless scalar field in 2+1…
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…
There is a current interest in quantum thermodynamics in the context of open quantum systems. An important issue is the consistency of quantum thermodynamics, in particular the second law of thermodynamics, i.e., the flow of heat from a hot…
The formulation of models describing quantum versions of heat engines plays an important role in the quest toward establishing the laws of thermodynamics in the quantum regime. Of particular importance is the description of stroke-based…
The fundamentals of a quantum heat engine are derived from first principles. The study is based on the equation of motion of a minimum set of operators which is then used to define the state of the system. The relation between the quantum…
Based on a quantum thermodynamic protocol for shortcut to isothermality that smoothly modify the system-reservoir interaction can significantly speed up an isothermal process while keeping the overall dissipation constant [Phys. Rev. X. 10,…
We formulate a protocol for a four-stroke quantum Otto engine that is capable of achieving superior performance when operating between two thermal reservoirs: one at a positive spin temperature and the other at an effective negative spin…
We revisit the problem of the thermalization process in an entropic formulation for the Unruh-DeWitt (UDW) detector outside a Schwarzschild black hole. We derive the late-time dynamics of the detector in the context of open quantum system,…
We consider the performance of periodically driven stochastic heat engines in the linear response regime. Reaching the theoretical bounds for efficiency and efficiency at maximum power typically requires full control over the design and the…
An open fully connected system of qubits at nonzero temperature is driven within a finite time interval along various paths in the space of its control parameters. The driving leads across finite-size precursors of first- and second-order…
Quantum thermal states are known to be passive, as required by the second law of thermodynamics. This paper investigates the potential for work extraction by coupling a thermal bath to a qubit of either spin, fermionic, or topological type,…
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,…