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arXiv:1703.04359 · Physical review. E

Single-temperature quantum engine without feedback control

Juyeon Yi, Peter Talkner A, Yong Woon Kim

Published Aug 4, 2017• 101 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A cyclically working quantum-mechanical engine that operates at a single temperature is proposed. Its energy input is delivered by a quantum measurement. The functioning of the engine does not require any feedback control. We analyze work, heat, and the efficiency of the engine for the case of a working substance that is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics and that can be adiabatically compressed and expanded. The obtained general expressions are exemplified for a spin in an adiabatically changing magnetic field and a particle moving in a potential with slowly changing shape.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.96.022108

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A cyclically working quantum-mechanical engine that operates at a single temperature is proposed. Its energy input is delivered by a quantum measurement. The functioning of the engine does not require any feedback control. We analyze work, heat, and the efficiency of the engine for the case of a working substance that is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics and that can be adiabatically compressed and expanded. The obtained general expressions are exemplified for a spin in an adiabatically changing magnetic field and a particle moving in a potential with slowly changing shape.
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Abstract In feedback controls, measurement is an essential step in designing protocols according to outcomes. For quantum mechanical systems, measurement has another effect; to supply energy to the measured system. We verify that in feedback-controlled quantum engines, measurement plays a dual role; not only as an auxiliary to perform feedback control but also as an energy supply to drive the engines. We consider a specific engine cycle exploiting feedback control followed by projective measurement and show that the maximum bound of the extractable work is set by both the efficacy of the feedback control and the energy change caused by projective measurement. We take a concrete example of an engine using an immobile spin-1/2 particle as a working substance and suggest two possible scenarios for work extraction.
We consider measurement based single temperature quantum heat engine without feedback control, introduced recently by Yi, Talkner and Kim [Phys. Rev. E 96, 022108 (2017)]. Taking the working medium of the engine to be a one-dimensional Heisenberg model of two spins, we calculate the efficiency of the engine undergoing a cyclic process. Starting with two spin-1/2 particles, we investigate the scenario of higher spins also. We show that, for this model of coupled working medium, efficiency can be higher than that of an uncoupled one. However, the relationship between the coupling constant and the efficiency of the engine is rather involved. We find that in the higher spin scenario efficiency can sometimes be negative (this means work has to be done to run the engine cycle) for certain range of coupling constants, in contrast to the aforesaid work of Yi, Talkner and Kim, where they showed that the extracted work is always positive in the absence of coupling. We provide arguments for this negative efficiency in higher spin scenarios. Interestingly, this happens only in the asymmetric scenarios, where the two spins are different. Given these facts, for judiciously chosen conditions, an engine with coupled working medium gives advantage for the efficiency over the uncoupled one.
We study the thermodynamics of a quantum measurement-powered engine that converts energy injected by measurement backaction into work. We consider an engine with a finite-dimensional working substance, driven purely by quantum measurements, i.e., by bare quantum measurements, without feedback control or thermal contact in the thermodynamic cycle. On the basis of a Poincaré-like recurrence theorem for general quantum channels, we prove a no-go result for work extraction from such an engine in the steady regime. In the steady regime, quantum measurements become nondisturbing and do not inject energy into the working substance. Consequently, no work can be extracted. This result reveals the necessity of an entropy-decreasing process, such as feedback control or thermal contact, for work extraction in steady-cycle measurement-powered engines.
By reformulating the first law of thermodynamics in the fashion of quantum-mechanical operators on the parameter manifold, we propose a universal class of quantum heat engines (QHE) using the multilevel quantum system as the working substance. We obtain a general expression of work for the thermodynamic cycle with two thermodynamic adiabatic processes, which are implied in quantum adiabatic processes. We also classify the conditions for a 3-level QHE to extract positive work, which is proved to be looser than that for a 2-level system under certain conditions. As a realistic illustration, a 3-level atom system with dark state configuration manipulated by a classical radiation field is used to demonstrate our central idea.
Abstract In this work, we introduce a three-stroke quantum engine with a single-qubit working substance whose cycle consists of two strokes arise due to performing two distinct general quantum measurements and it is completed by thermalization through contact with a finite temperature thermal reservoir. It is demonstrated that energy is imported into the engine by first measurement channel and work (useful energy) is extracted from it, in a frictionless isentropic manner, by the second measurement channel. It is particularly shown that the engine is capable to have perfect efficiency. In continuation, we equip the engine cycle with two additional adiabatic strokes. As illustrated, the presence of adiabatic strokes in the cycle provide an improved lower bound for the parametrized efficiency range of the engine.