Related papers: Cyclic active refrigerators
This work is focused on optimal control of mechanical compression refrigeration systems. A reduced-order state-space model based on the moving boundary approach is proposed for the canonical cycle, which eases the controller design. The…
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…
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 study the physical mechanism of Maxwell's Demon (MD) helping to do extra work in thermodynamic cycles, by describing measurement of position, insertion of wall and information erasing of MD in a quantum mechanical fashion. The heat…
Engines are open systems that can generate work cyclically, at the expense of an external disequilibrium. They are ubiquitous in nature and technology, but the course of mathematical physics over the last 300 years has tended to make their…
We develop a physics-based model for classical computation based on autonomous quantum thermal machines. These machines consist of few interacting quantum bits (qubits) connected to several environments at different temperatures. Heat flows…
A consequence of the Second Law of thermodynamics is that no thermodynamic system with a single heat source at constant temperature can convert heat into mechanical work in a recurrent manner. First we note that this is equivalent to…
The triumph of heat engines is their ability to convert the disordered energy of thermal sources into useful mechanical motion. In recent years, much effort has been devoted to generalizing thermodynamic notions to the quantum regime,…
We argue that thermal machines can be understood from the perspective of `virtual qubits' at `virtual temperatures': The relevant way to view the two heat baths which drive a thermal machine is as a composite system. Virtual qubits are…
Recently, our efforts to clarify the old question, if a memristor is a passive or active device [1], triggered debates between engineers, who have had advanced definitions of passivity/activity of devices, and physicists with significantly…
Recent work using tools from quantum information theory has shown that at the nanoscale where quantum effects become prevalent, there is not one thermodynamical second law but many. Derivations of these laws assume that an experimenter has…
Classical thermodynamics aimed to quantify the efficiency of thermodynamic engines by bounding the maximal amount of mechanical energy produced compared to the amount of heat required. While this was accomplished early on, by Carnot and…
Microscopic thermal machines promise to play an important role in future quantum technologies. Making such devices widely applicable will require effective strategies to channel their output into easily accessible storage systems like…
We investigate a model for a Stirling-like engine consisting of a passive Brownian particle confined by a harmonic potential and interacting with a suspension of active Brownian particles that self-propel in a viscous solvent, which…
For 1D Hamiltonian systems with periodic solutions, Helmholtz formalism provides a tantalizing interpretation of classical thermodynamics, based on time integrals of purely mechanical quantities and without need of statistical description.…
We solve a set of selected exercises on rotational motion requiring a mechanical and thermodynamical analysis. When non-conservative forces or thermal effects are present, a complete study must use the first law of thermodynamics together…
In the real world, one almost never knows the parameters of a thermodynamic process to infinite precision. Reflecting this, here we investigate how to extend stochastic thermodynamics to systems with uncertain parameters, including…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
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…
In analogy to Brownian computers we explicitly show how to construct stochastic models, which mimic the behaviour of a general purpose computer (a Turing machine). Our models are discrete state systems obeying a Markovian master equation,…