Thermodynamic bound on heat to power conversion
Statistical Mechanics
2018-08-27 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Abstract
In systems described by the scattering theory, there is an upper bound, lower than Carnot, on the efficiency of steady-state heat to work conversion at a given output power. We show that interacting systems can overcome such bound and saturate, in the thermodynamic limit, the much more favorable linear-response bound. This result is rooted in the possibility for interacting systems to achieve the Carnot efficiency at the thermodynamic limit without delta-energy filtering, so that large efficiencies can be obtained without greatly reducing power.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1710.06646,
title = {Thermodynamic bound on heat to power conversion},
author = {Rongxiang Luo and Giuliano Benenti and Giulio Casati and Jiao Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.06646},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
11 pages, 11 figures, added an illustrative example in two dimensions and discussed the bound on efficiency for a given cooling power