Related papers: Heat Flow and Efficiency in a Microscopic Engine
We consider a three-stroke engine in the microscopic regime, where the working body of the engine is composed of a two-level system. The working body of the engine aims to withdraw heat from the hot heat bath, generate work, and discharge…
An expression for the energetic efficiency of a molecular motor is presented in terms of an effective temperature, which was defined based on the ratio of the correlation function to the susceptibility of its velocity. We also present a…
The historical development of the Carnot cycle necessitated the construction of isothermal and adiabatic pathways within the cycle that were also mechanically "reversible" which lead eventually to the Kelvin-Clausius development of the…
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…
We study the efficiency fluctuations of a stochastic heat engine made of $N$ interacting unicyclic machines and undergoing a phase transition in the macroscopic limit. Depending on $N$ and on the observation time, the machine can explore…
When a reciprocating heat engine is started it eventually settles to a stable mode of operation. The approach of a first principle quantum heat engine toward this stable limit cycle is studied. The engine is based on a working medium…
Transport of a Brownian particle moving in a periodic potential is investigated in the presence of symmetric unbiased external force. The viscous medium is alternately in contact with the two heat reservoirs. We present the analytical…
A quantum heat engine of a specific type is studied. This engine contains a single particle confined in the infinite square well potential with variable width and consists of three processes: the isoenergetic process (which has no classical…
We investigate a kinetic heat engine model constituted by particles enclosed in a box where one side acts as a thermostat and the opposite side is a piston exerting a given pressure. Pressure and temperature are varied in a cyclical…
Quantum heat engines employ as working agents multi-level systems instead of gas-filled cylinders. We consider particularly two-level agents such as electrons immersed in a magnetic field. Work is produced in that case when the electrons…
The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…
Work extraction from a heat engine in a cycle by a quantum mechanical device (quantum "piston") is analyzed. The standard definition of work fails in the quantum domain. The correct extractable work and its efficiency bound are shown to…
The derivation of general performance benchmarks is important in the design of highly optimized heat engines and refrigerators. To obtain them, one may model phenomenologically the leading sources of irreversibility ending up with results…
The construction of efficient thermal engines operating at finite times constitutes a fundamental and timely topic in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We introduce a strategy for optimizing the performance of Brownian engines, based on a…
Microscopic thermal machines that are of the dimensions of around few hundred nanometers have been the subject of intense study over the last two decades. Recently, it has been shown that the efficiency of such thermal engines can be…
We analyse a device aimed at the conversion of heat into electrical energy, based on a closed cycle in which a distiller generates two solutions at different concentrations, and an electrochemical cell consumes the concentration difference,…
Established heat engines in quantum regime can be modeled with various quantum systems as working substances. For example, in the non-relativistic case, we can model the heat engine using infinite potential well as a working substance to…
The optimal efficiency of quantum (or classical) heat engines whose heat baths are $n$-particle systems is given by the information geometry and the strong large deviation. We give the optimal work extraction process as a concrete…
We want to understand whether and to which extent the maximal (Carnot) efficiency for heat engines can be reached at a finite power. To this end we generalize the Carnot cycle so that it is not restricted to slow processes. We show that for…
Stochastic thermodynamics has revolutionized our understanding of heat engines operating in finite time. Recently, numerous studies have considered the optimal operation of thermodynamic cycles acting as heat engines with a given profile in…