Performance of a quantum heat engine at strong reservoir coupling
Author(s)
Newman, David
Mintert, Florian
Nazir, Ahsan
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We study a quantum heat engine at strong coupling between the system and the thermal reservoirs. Exploiting a collective coordinate mapping, we incorporate system-reservoir correlations into a consistent thermodynamic analysis, thus circumventing the usual restriction to weak coupling and vanishing correlations. We apply our formalism to the example of a quantum Otto cycle, demonstrating that the performance of the engine is diminished in the strong coupling regime with respect to its weakly coupled counterpart, producing a reduced net work output and operating at a lower energy conversion efficiency. We identify costs imposed by sudden decoupling of the system and reservoirs around the cycle as being primarily responsible for the diminished performance, and we define an alternative operational procedure which can partially recover the work output and efficiency. More generally, the collective coordinate mapping holds considerable promise for wider studies of thermodynamic systems beyond weak reservoir coupling.
Date Issued
2017-03-27
Date Acceptance
2016-10-01
Citation
Physical Review E: Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 2017, 95 (3)
ISSN
1539-3755
Publisher
American Physical Society
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review E: Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Volume
95
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
©2017 American Physical Society
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000399147600002&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Physics, Fluids & Plasmas
Physics, Mathematical
Physics
THERMODYNAMICS
SYSTEMS
WORK
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 032139