Related papers: A simple quantum heat engine
Combining two disparate lines of thought like thermodynamics and quantum mechanics yields surprising results. The resulting idea of quantum thermodynamic engines holds promise for harvesting novel sources of energy of purely quantum origin,…
We investigate a quantum heat engine with a working substance of two particles, one with a spin $1/2$ and the other with an arbitrary spin (spin $s$), coupled by Heisenberg exchange interaction, and subject to an external magnetic field.…
We study two different models of optomechanical systems where a temperature gradient between two radiation baths is exploited for inducing self-sustained coherent oscillations of a mechanical resonator. Viewed from a thermodynamic…
Abstract We perform an experiment in which a quantum heat engine works under two reservoirs, one at a positive spin temperature and the other at an effective negative spin temperature i.e., when the spin system presents population…
There exist two formulations for quantum heat engine that models an energy transfer between two microscopic systems. One is semi-classical scenario, and the other is full quantum scenario. The former is formulated as a unitary evolution for…
It is possible to extract work from a quantum-mechanical system whose dynamics is governed by a time-dependent cyclic Hamiltonian. An energy bath is required to operate such a quantum engine in place of the heat bath used to run a…
One of the fundamental questions in quantum thermodynamics concerns the decomposition of energetic changes into heat and work. Contrary to classical engines, the entropy change of the piston cannot be neglected in the quantum domain. As a…
Interesting effects arise in cyclic machines where both heat and ergotropy transfer take place between the energising bath and the system (the working fluid). Such effects correspond to unconventional decompositions of energy exchange…
A central building block of a heat engine is the working fluid, which mediates the conversion of heat into work. In nanoscale heat engines, the working fluid can be a quantum system whose behavior and dynamics are non-classical. A…
The difference between quantum isoenergetic process and quantum isothermal process comes from the violation of the law of equipartition of energy in the quantum regime. To reveal an important physical meaning of this fact, here we study a…
We construct the smallest possible self contained heat engines; one composed of only two qubits, the other of only a single qutrit. The engines are self-contained as they do not require external sources of work and/or control. They are able…
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 heat engines (QHE) are thermal machines where the working substance is quantum. In the extreme case the working medium can be a single particle or a few level quantum system. The study of QHE has shown a remarkable similarity with…
The laws of thermodynamics strongly restrict the performance of thermal machines. Standard thermodynamics, initially developed for uncorrelated macroscopic systems, does not hold for microscopic systems correlated with their environments.…
Several studies have combined heat and gravitational energy exchanges to create novel heat engines. A common theoretical framework is developed here to describe thermogravitational cycles which have the same efficiencies as the Carnot,…
We present a (random) mechanical model consisting of two lottery-like reservoirs at altitude $E_h$ and $E_l<E_h$, respectively, in the earth's gravitational field. Both reservoirs consist of $N$ possible ball locations. The upper reservoir…
A pair of two-level systems initially prepared in different thermal states and coupled to an external reversible work source, do not in general reach a common temperature at the end of a unitary work extraction process. We define an…
Various engine types are thermodynamically equivalent in the quantum limit of small 'engine action'. Our previous derivation of the equivalence is restricted to Markovian heat baths and to implicit classical work repository (e.g., laser…
Energy exchanges under form of heat is neither the most natural or efficient way to operate an engine in the quantum realm. Recently there have been in the literature several proposals for "quantum measurement engines" where energy is fed…
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.…