Spin quantum heat engines with shortcuts to adiabaticity.

Abstract

We consider a finite-time quantum Otto cycle with single- and two spin-1/2 systems as its working medium. To mimic adiabatic dynamics at a finite time, we employ a shortcut-to-adiabaticity technique and evaluate the performance of the engine including the cost of the shortcut. We compare our results with the true adiabatic and nonadiabatic performances of the same cycle. Our findings indicate that the use of the shortcut-to-adiabaticity scheme significantly enhances the performance of the quantum Otto engine as compared to its adiabatic and nonadiabatic counterparts for different figures of merit.