Abstract
The practical untenability of the quasi-static assumption makes any realistic engine intrinsically irreversible and its operating time finite, thus implying friction effects at short cycle times. An important technological goal is thus the design of maximally efficient engines working at the maximum possible power. We show that, by utilising shortcuts to adiabaticity in a quantum engine cycle, one can engineer a thermodynamic cycle working at finite power and zero friction. Our findings are illustrated using a harmonic oscillator undergoing a quantum Otto cycle.
Highlights
The practical untenability of the quasi-static assumption makes any realistic engine intrinsically irreversible and its operating time finite, implying friction effects at short cycle times
By utilising shortcuts to adiabaticity in a quantum engine cycle, one can engineer a thermodynamic cycle working at finite power and zero friction
Discovered work fluctuation theorems (FTs) and the corresponding framework, which is known to hold both in quantum and classical systems, are extremely useful for the task of setting up a quantum apparatus for thermodynamics[3,4,5,6,7]
Summary
The practical untenability of the quasi-static assumption makes any realistic engine intrinsically irreversible and its operating time finite, implying friction effects at short cycle times. While Ref. 14 proposes the use of systematic noise to suppress friction in the expansion and compression stages of a quantum Otto cycle, here we devise an innovative way to run a finite-time, finitepower quantum cycle based on the use of quantum shortcuts to adiabaticity[20,21,22,23,24]. Such techniques have been employed to show that the Hamiltonian of a quantum system can be manipulated in a way to mimic an adiabatic process via a non-adiabatic shortcut[20,21,22,23,24].
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