TY - JOUR
T1 - Thermodynamic Geometry of Microscopic Heat Engines
AU - Brandner, Kay
AU - Saito, Keiji
N1 - Funding Information:
K. B. thanks P. Menczel for insightful discussions and for a careful proof reading of this manuscript and J. P. Pekola for helpful comments. K. B. acknowledges support from Academy of Finland (Contract No. 296073) and is associated with the Centre for Quantum Engineering at Aalto University. K. S. was supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (JP17K05587, JP16H02211). K. B. performed part of this work as an International Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Fellowship ID: P19026).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Physical Society.
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
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 124
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 4
M1 - 040602
ER -