Related papers: Heat Flow and Efficiency in a Microscopic Engine
In a quantum Stirling heat engine, the heat exchanged with two thermal baths is partly utilized for performing work by redistributing the energy levels of the working substance. We analyze the thermodynamics of a quantum Stirling engine…
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…
Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…
Molecular motors convert chemical energy into mechanical work while operating in an environment dominated by Brownian motion. The aim of this paper is to explore the flow of energy between the molecular motors and its surroundings, in…
A system consisting of two slabs with different temperatures can exhibit a non-equilibrium lateral Casimir force on either one of the slabs when Lorentz reciprocity is broken in at least one of the slabs. This system constitutes a photonic…
We introduce heat engines working in the nano-regime that allow to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. We show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a…
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…
A heat engine is a machine which uses the temperature difference between a hot and a cold reservoir to extract work. Here both reservoirs are quantum systems and a heat engine is described by a unitary transformation which decreases the…
We quantify the prior information to infer the optimal characteristics for a constrained thermodynamic process of maximum work extraction for a pair of non-identical finite systems. The total entropy of the whole system remains conserved.…
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…
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,…
We study a quantum Stirling cycle which extracts work using quantized energy levels of a potential well. The work and the efficiency of the engine depend on the length of the potential well, and the Carnot efficiency is approached in a low…
The optimal power performance of a first principle quantum heat engine model shows friction-like phenomena when the internal fluid Hamiltonian does not commute with the external control field. The model is based on interacting…
Diverse models of engines energised by quantum-coherent, hence non-thermal, baths allow the engine efficiency to transgress the standard thermodynamic Carnot bound. These transgressions call for an elucidation of the underlying mechanisms.…
Abstract The Curzon-Ahlborn (CA) efficiency, as the efficiency at the maximum power (EMP) of the endoreversible Carnot engine, has a significant impact on finite-time thermodynamics. However, the CA engine model is based on many…
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…
We study a quantum thermal engine model for which the heat transfer law is determined by Einstein's theory of radiation. The working substance of the quantum engine is assumed to be a two-level quantum systems of which the constituent…
Considering ideal paramagnetic medium, in this paper we deduced an expression for the thermal efficiency of Carnot heat engine with a paramagnetic gas as working substance. We found that the efficiency depends on the limits of maximum and…
Achieving the Carnot efficiency at finite power is a challenging problem in heat engines due to the trade-off relation between efficiency and power that holds for general heat engines. It is pointed out that the Carnot efficiency at finite…
Engines are systems and devices that convert one form of energy into another, typically into a more useful form that can perform work. In the classical setup, physical, chemical, and biological engines largely involve the conversion of heat…