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Quantum Heat Engines and Refrigerators: Continuous Devices

Quantum Heat Engines and Refrigerators: Continuous Devices Quantum thermodynamics supplies a consistent description of quantum heat engines and refrigerators up to a single few-level system coupled to the environment. Once the environment is split into three (a hot, cold, and work reservoir), a heat engine can operate. The device converts the positive gain into power, with the gain obtained from population inversion between the components of the device. Reversing the operation transforms the device into a quantum refrigerator. The quantum tricycle, a device connected by three external leads to three heat reservoirs, is used as a template for engines and refrigerators. The equation of motion for the heat currents and power can be derived from first principles. Only a global description of the coupling of the device to the reservoirs is consistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Optimization of the devices leads to a balanced set of parameters in which the couplings to the three reservoirs are of the same order and the external driving field is in resonance. When analyzing refrigerators, one needs to devote special attention to a dynamical version of the third law of thermodynamics. Bounds on the rate of cooling when T c →0 are obtained by optimizing the cooling current. All refrigerators as T c →0 show universal behavior. The dynamical version of the third law imposes restrictions on the scaling as T c →0 of the relaxation rate γ c and heat capacity c V of the cold bath. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Physical Chemistry Annual Reviews

Quantum Heat Engines and Refrigerators: Continuous Devices

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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
ISSN
0066-426X
eISSN
1545-1593
DOI
10.1146/annurev-physchem-040513-103724
pmid
24689798
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Quantum thermodynamics supplies a consistent description of quantum heat engines and refrigerators up to a single few-level system coupled to the environment. Once the environment is split into three (a hot, cold, and work reservoir), a heat engine can operate. The device converts the positive gain into power, with the gain obtained from population inversion between the components of the device. Reversing the operation transforms the device into a quantum refrigerator. The quantum tricycle, a device connected by three external leads to three heat reservoirs, is used as a template for engines and refrigerators. The equation of motion for the heat currents and power can be derived from first principles. Only a global description of the coupling of the device to the reservoirs is consistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Optimization of the devices leads to a balanced set of parameters in which the couplings to the three reservoirs are of the same order and the external driving field is in resonance. When analyzing refrigerators, one needs to devote special attention to a dynamical version of the third law of thermodynamics. Bounds on the rate of cooling when T c →0 are obtained by optimizing the cooling current. All refrigerators as T c →0 show universal behavior. The dynamical version of the third law imposes restrictions on the scaling as T c →0 of the relaxation rate γ c and heat capacity c V of the cold bath.

Journal

Annual Review of Physical ChemistryAnnual Reviews

Published: Apr 1, 2014

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