Related papers: Exploring the operation of a tiny heat engine
When do non-equilibrium forms of disordered energy qualify as heat? \textcolor{blue}{We address this question in the context of cyclically operating heat engines in contact with a non-equilibrium energy reservoir that defies the zeroth law…
Active Brownian engines rectify energy from reservoirs composed of self-propelling non-equilibrium molecules into work. We consider a class of such engines based on an underdamped Brownian particle trapped in a power-law potential. The…
We present a simple kinematic model of a non-equilibrium steady state device, which can operate either as a heat engine or as a refrigerator. The model is composed of two or more scattering channels where the motion is fully described by…
A dynamical model of a highly efficient heat engine is proposed, where an applied temperature difference maintains the motion of particles around the circuit consisting of two asymmetric narrow channels, in one of which the current flows…
The purpose of this work is to present the concept of an autonomous Stirling-like engine powered by anisotropy of thermodynamic fluctuations. Specifically, simultaneous contact of a thermodynamic system with two heat baths along coupled…
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…
We consider a simple model of a stochastic heat engine, which consists of a single Brownian particle moving in a one-dimensional periodically breathing harmonic potential. Overdamped limit is assumed. Expressions of second moments…
We study a molecular engine constituted by a gas of $N \sim 10^2$ molecules enclosed between a massive piston and a thermostat. The force acting on the piston and the temperature of the thermostat are cyclically changed with a finite period…
From the steam engine to current nano-devices, the design of efficient thermal machines has been instrumental in modern societies. In its essence a thermal engine can be thought as a working substance, in contact with two or more baths,…
We model a Brownian heat engine as a Brownian particle that hops in a periodic ratchet potential where the ratchet potential is coupled with a linearly decreasing background temperature. It is shown that the efficiency of such Brownian heat…
We present a detailed study of a Brownian particle driven by Carnot-type refrigerating protocol operating between two thermal baths. Both the underdamped as well as the overdamped limits are investigated. The particle is in a harmonic…
For heat engines working between two heat baths, functionality is often conditioned on a set of fixed constraints such as given internal structure of the engine and given temperatures for the baths. It is, however, important to devise heat…
A colloidal particle embedded in a fluid can be used as a microscopic heat engine by means of a sequence of cyclic transformations imposed by an optical trap. We investigate a model for the operation of such kind of Brownian engines when…
In traditional thermodynamics the Carnot cycle yields the ideal performance bound of heat engines and refrigerators. We propose and analyze a minimal model of a heat machine that can play a similar role in quantum regimes. The minimal model…
We consider a model of a Brownian motor composed of two coupled overdamped degrees of freedom moving in periodic potentials and driven by two heat reservoirs. This model exhibits a spontaneous breaking of symmetry and gives rise to directed…
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,…
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 present a Brownian dynamics simulation of the bacterial Stirling engine studied by Krishnamurthy et al., Nat. Phys. 12, 1134 (2016). In their experimental setup, an overdamped colloid in an optical trap with time-modulated stiffness…
In this study, we advance the understanding of non-equilibrium systems by deriving thermodynamic relations for a heat engine operating under an exponentially decreasing temperature profile. Such thermal configurations closely mimic…
When a Brownian particle in contact with a heat bath at a constant temperature is controlled by a time-dependent harmonic potential, its distribution function can be rigorously derived from the Kramers equation with the consideration of the…