相关论文: Extracting Work From A Single Heat Bath

In traditional thermodynamics the Carnot cycle yields the ideal performance bound of heat engines and refrigerators. We propose and analyze a minimal model of a heat machine that can play a similar role in quantum regimes. The minimal model…

A pair of systems at different temperatures is a classic environment for a heat engine, which produces work during the relaxation to a common equilibrium. It is generally believed that a direct interaction between the two systems will…

We consider both Otto and Diesel heat engine cycles running upon the working substances modeled by the van der Waals fluid as a simple non-ideal gas model. We extensively perform the efficiency study in these model engines. Then we find…

It is nearly 150 years since Maxwell challenged the validity of the second law of thermodynamics by imagining a tiny creature who could sort the molecules of a gas in such a way that would decrease entropy without exerting any work. The…

With the progress of nano-technology, thermodynamics also has to be scaled down, calling for specific protocols to extract and measure work. Usually, such protocols involve the action of an external, classical field (the battery) of…

This paper considers work extraction from a quantum system to a work storage system (or weight) following reference [1]. An alternative approach is here developed that relies on the comparison of subspace dimensions without a need to…

A cyclic thermodynamic heat engine runs most efficiently if it is reversible. Carnot constructed such a reversible heat engine by combining adiabatic and isothermal processes for a system containing an ideal gas. Here, we present an example…

We analyze a heat engine based on a hot cavity connected via quantum wells to electronic reservoirs. We discuss the output power as well as the efficiency both in the linear and nonlinear regime. We find that the device delivers a large…

We construct an example of heat engine whose efficiency at maximum power breaks down the previously derived bounds in the linear response regime. Such example takes a classical harmonic oscillator as the working substance undergoing a…

An analysis of efficiency and its bounds at maximum work output for Carnot-like heat engines is conducted. The heat transfer processes are described by the linear law with time-dependent heat conductance. The upper bound of efficiency is…

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…

Whether the strong coupling to thermal baths can improve the performance of quantum thermal machines remains an open issue under active debate. Here, we revisit quantum thermal machines operating with the quasi-static Carnot cycle and aim…

Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy, as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a "Maxwell's demon" to power a single-temperature heat engine, by decreasing the entropy. Quantum…

We propose a simple classical dynamical model of a thermoelectric (or thermochemical) heat engine based on a pair of ideal gas containers connected by two unequal scattering channels. The model is solved analytically and it is shown that a…

Situations where a spontaneous process of energy or matter transfer is enhanced by an external device are widespread in nature (human sweating system, enzyme catalysis, facilitated diffusion across bio-membranes, industrial heat…

Random noise can generate a unidirectional heat current across asymmetric nano objects in the absence (or against) a temperature gradient. We present a minimal model for a molecular-level stochastic heat pump that may operate arbitrarily…

We present a mechanism for efficiency increase in quantum heat engines containing internal energy levels that do not couple to the external work sink. The gain is achieved by using these levels to channel heat in a direction opposite to the…

Thermodynamics places a limit on the efficiency of heat engines, but not on their output power or on how the power and efficiency change with the engine's cycle time. In this manuscript, we develop a geometrical description of the power and…

We derive the work cost of using generalized thermal baths from the physical equivalence of quantum mechanics under unitary transformations. We demonstrate our method by considering a qubit extracting work from a single bath to amplify a…

Maxwell's demon is the quintessential example of information control, which is necessary for designing quantum devices. In thermodynamics, the demon is an intelligent being who utilizes the entropic nature of information to sort excitations…