TY - JOUR
T1 - Thermodynamic Geometry of Microscopic Heat Engines
AU - Brandner, Kay
AU - Saito, Keiji
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Physical Society.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/1/29
Y1 - 2020/1/29
N2 - We develop a general framework to describe the thermodynamics of microscopic heat engines driven by arbitrary periodic temperature variations and modulations of a mechanical control parameter. Within the slow-driving regime, our approach leads to a universal trade-off relation between efficiency and power, which follows solely from geometric arguments and holds for any thermodynamically consistent microdynamics. Focusing on Lindblad dynamics, we derive a second bound showing that coherence as a genuine quantum effect inevitably reduces the performance of slow engine cycles regardless of the driving amplitudes. To show how our theory can be applied in practice, we work out a specific example, which lies within the range of current solid-state technologies.
AB - We develop a general framework to describe the thermodynamics of microscopic heat engines driven by arbitrary periodic temperature variations and modulations of a mechanical control parameter. Within the slow-driving regime, our approach leads to a universal trade-off relation between efficiency and power, which follows solely from geometric arguments and holds for any thermodynamically consistent microdynamics. Focusing on Lindblad dynamics, we derive a second bound showing that coherence as a genuine quantum effect inevitably reduces the performance of slow engine cycles regardless of the driving amplitudes. To show how our theory can be applied in practice, we work out a specific example, which lies within the range of current solid-state technologies.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.040602
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.040602
M3 - Article
C2 - 32058746
AN - SCOPUS:85079536832
VL - 124
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 4
M1 - 040602
ER -