Thermal Science

Work output and efficiency of a reversible quantum Otto cycle

Feng Wu, Zhichun Yang, Lingen Chen, Xiaowei Liu, Shuang Wu

Published Jan 1, 2010• 22 citations

Abstract

An idealized reversible Otto cycle working with a single quantum mechanical particle contained in a potential well is investigated based on the Schrödinger equation in this paper. The model of a reversible quantum Otto cycle, which consists of two reversible adiabatic and two constant-well widen branches, is established. As an example, we calculate a particularly simple case in which only two of the eigenstates of the potential well contribute to the wave-function in the well. The relationship between the optimal dimensionless work output W

DOI: 10.2298/tsci1004879w

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