Related papers: Optimizing the classical heat engine
The unavoidable irreversible losses of power in a heat engine are found to be of quantum origin. Following thermodynamic tradition a model quantum heat engine operating by the Otto cycle is analyzed. The working medium of the model is…
For cyclic heat engines operating in a finite cycle period, thermodynamic quantities have intercycle and intracycle correlations. By tuning the driving protocol appropriately, we can get the negative intercycle correlation to reduce the…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamic cycle of a quantum heat engine carrying out an Otto thermodynamic cycle. We use the thermal properties of a moving heat bath with relativistic velocity with respect to the cold bath. As a working…
We study a class of non-equilibrium quasi-stationary states for a Markov system interacting with two different thermal baths. We show that the work done under a slow, external change of parameters admits a potential, i.e., the free energy.…
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…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
We present a fluctuation relation for heat dissipation in a nonequilibrium system. A nonequilibrium work is known to obey the fluctuation theorem in any time interval $t$. A heat, which differs from a work by an energy change, is shown to…
Quantum measurement is ultimately a physical process, resulting from an interaction between the measured system and a measuring apparatus. Considering the physical process of measurement within a thermodynamic context naturally raises the…
Thermodynamics of nanoscale devices is an active area of research. Despite their noisy surrounding they often produce mechanical work (e.g. micro-heat engines), display rectified Brownian motion (e.g. molecular motors). This invokes…
Physical systems driven away from equilibrium by an external controller dissipate heat to the environment; the excess entropy production in the thermal reservoir can be interpreted as a "cost" to transform the system in a finite time. The…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting self-propelled semi-flexible polymers in contact with a thermal bath. Our intention is to model complex systems of biological interest. We find that…
We study relaxational behavior from a highly excited state for a composite system in partial contact with a heat bath, motivated by an experimental report of long-term energy storage in protein molecules. The system consists of two coupled…
Thermal machines perform useful tasks--such as producing work, cooling, or heating--by exchanging energy, and possibly additional conserved quantities such as particles, with reservoirs. Here we consider thermal machines that perform more…
We study intraenvironmental classical and quantum correlations in a thermal machine, which is modeled as a driven quantum system coupled with thermal reservoirs. We compute the mutual information, the quantum discord, and the entanglement…
We propose a generalization of classical statistical mechanics which describes the behavior of dissipative systems placed in contact with a heat bath. In contrast to conventional statistical mechanics, which assigns probabilities to the…
Quantum mechanical entanglement can exist in noisy open quantum systems at high temperature. A simple mechanism, where system particles are randomly reset to some standard initial state, can counteract the deteriorating effect of…
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.…
An analysis of efficiency and its bounds at maximum work output for Carnot-like heat engines is conducted. The heat transfer processes are described by the linear law with time-dependent heat conductance. The upper bound of efficiency is…
We present a formalism to study the heat transport and the power developed by the local driving fields on a quantum system coupled to macroscopic reservoirs. We show that, quite generally, two important mechanisms can take place: (i)…
Heat engines are fundamental physical objects to develop nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The thermodynamic performance of the heat engine is determined by the choice of cycle and time-dependence of parameters. Here, we propose a systematic…