LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Finite-size effect on optimal efficiency of heat engines.

Photo by visuals_by_fred from unsplash

The optimal efficiency of quantum (or classical) heat engines whose heat baths are n-particle systems is given by the strong large deviation. We give the optimal work extraction process as… Click to show full abstract

The optimal efficiency of quantum (or classical) heat engines whose heat baths are n-particle systems is given by the strong large deviation. We give the optimal work extraction process as a concrete energy-preserving unitary time evolution among the heat baths and the work storage. We show that our optimal work extraction turns the disordered energy of the heat baths to the ordered energy of the work storage, by evaluating the ratio of the entropy difference to the energy difference in the heat baths and the work storage, respectively. By comparing the statistical mechanical optimal efficiency with the macroscopic thermodynamic bound, we evaluate the accuracy of the macroscopic thermodynamics with finite-size heat baths from the statistical mechanical viewpoint. We also evaluate the quantum coherence effect on the optimal efficiency of the cycle processes without restricting their cycle time by comparing the classical and quantum optimal efficiencies.

Keywords: finite size; heat engines; heat baths; optimal efficiency; heat

Journal Title: Physical Review E
Year Published: 2017

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.