English

Maximum efficiency of low-dissipation refrigerators at arbitrary cooling power

Statistical Mechanics 2020-05-27 v2

Abstract

We analytically derive maximum efficiency at given cooling power for Carnot-type low-dissipation refrigerators. The corresponding optimal cycle duration depends on a single parameter, which is a specific combination of irreversibility parameters and bath temperatures. For a slight decrease in power with respect to its maximum value, the maximum efficiency exhibits an infinitely-fast nonlinear increase, which is standard in heat engines, only for a limited range of parameters. Otherwise, it increases only linearly with the slope given by ratio of irreversibility parameters. This behavior can be traced to the fact that maximum power is attained for vanishing duration of the hot isotherm. Due to the lengthiness of the full solution for the maximum efficiency, we discuss and demonstrate these results using simple approximations valid for parameters yielding the two different qualitative behaviors. We also discuss relation of our findings to those obtained for minimally nonlinear irreversible refrigerators.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.02013,
  title  = {Maximum efficiency of low-dissipation refrigerators at arbitrary cooling power},
  author = {Viktor Holubec and Zhuolin Ye},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.02013},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

10 pages, 4 figures, updated references

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:03:32.760Z