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Related papers: Entropy and Temperature of a Quantum Carnot Engine

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A key quantity characterizing a time-periodically forced quantum system coupled to a heat bath is the energy flowing in the steady state through the system into the bath, where it is dissipated. We derive a general expression which allows…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-18 Matthias Langemeyer , Martin Holthaus

According to the second law, the efficiency of cyclic heat engines is limited by the Carnot bound that is attained by engines that operate between two thermal baths under the reversibility condition whereby the total entropy does not…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-01-12 Wolfgang Niedenzu , Victor Mukherjee , Arnab Ghosh , Abraham G. Kofman , Gershon Kurizki

From an entropy-based formulation of the first law of thermodynamics in the quantum regime, we investigate the performance of Otto-like and Carnot-like engines for a single-qubit working medium. Within this framework, the first law includes…

The separation of internal energy into heat and work in quantum thermodynamics is a controversial issue for a long time, and we revisit and solve this problem in this work. It is shown that the Hamiltonian plays dual roles for a quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-01-03 Tao Zhou , Jiangyang Pu , Xiaohua Wu

The proper definition of entropy is fundamental to the relationship between statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. It also plays a major role in the recent debate about the validity of the concept of negative temperature. In this paper,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-11-18 Robert H. Swendsen

Heat engines constitute the major building blocks of modern technologies. However, conventional heat engines with higher power yield lesser efficiency and vice versa and respect various power-efficiency trade-off relations. This is also…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-03-04 Mohit Lal Bera , Sergi Julià-Farré , Maciej Lewenstein , Manabendra Nath Bera

Environments in quantum thermodynamics usually take the role of heat baths. These baths are Markovian, weakly coupled to the system, and initialized in a thermal state. Whenever one of these properties is missing, standard quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-08-02 Alessandra Colla , Heinz-Peter Breuer

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-04-02 M. Khanahmadi , A. T. Rezakhani

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,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-02-05 Jianhui Wang , Yongli Ma , Jizhou He

Quantum coherence provides a controllable thermodynamic resource that can raise or lower the effective temperature of a cavity mode, enabling efficiency tuning in quantum heat engines. Here, we derive analytic expressions for the effective…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-07 Hui Wang , Yusef Maleki , William J. Munro , Marlan O. Scully

Quantum decoherence is seen as an undesired source of irreversibility that destroys quantum resources. Quantum coherences seem to be a property that vanishes at thermodynamic equilibrium. Away from equilibrium, quantum coherences challenge…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-08-13 César A. Rodríguez-Rosario , Thomas Frauenheim , Alán Aspuru-Guzik

Quantum thermodynamics has emerged as a central field for understanding how energy conversion processes occur in microscopic systems. In these systems, effects such as coherence, entanglement, and non-Markovianity play key roles. In this…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-02 J. M. Z. Choquehuanca

Sadi Carnot's theorem regarding the maximum efficiency of heat engines is considered to be of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. This theorem famously states that the maximum efficiency depends only on the temperature of the heat…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-21 Mischa P. Woods , Nelly Ng , Stephanie Wehner

Continuous particle exchange thermal machines require no time-dependent driving, can be realised in solid-state electronic devices, and miniaturised to nanometre scale. Quantum dots, providing a narrow energy filter and allowing to…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2025-12-18 Eugenia Pyurbeeva , Ronnie Kosloff

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-08-01 Debmalya Das , George Thomas , Andrew N. Jordan

We investigate the thermodynamic behavior of open quantum systems through the Hamiltonian of Mean Force, focusing on two models: a two-qubit system interacting with a thermal bath and a Jaynes-Cummings Model without the rotating wave…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-09-03 Neha Pathania , Devvrat Tiwari , Subhashish Banerjee

Simulations are performed of a small quantum system interacting with a quantum environment. The system consists of various initial states of two harmonic oscillators coupled to give normal modes. The environment is "designed" by its level…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-15 George L. Barnes , Michael E. Kellman

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2012-11-30 H. Yan , Hao Guo

We propose a method to continually monitor the energy of a quantum system. We show that by having some previous knowledge of the system's dynamics, but not all of it, one can use the measured energy to determine many other quantities, such…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-03-29 Gabriel P. Martins , Nadja K. Bernardes , Marcelo F. Santos

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.…