We show that non-Markovian effects of the reservoirs can be used as a resource to extract work from an Otto cycle. The state transformation under non-Markovian dynamics is achieved via a two-step process, namely an isothermal process using a Markovian reservoir followed by an adiabatic process. From second law of thermodynamics, we show that the maximum amount of extractable work from the state prepared under the non-Markovian dynamics quantifies a lower bound of non-Markovianity. We illustrate our ideas with an explicit example of non-Markovian evolution.
The efficiency of small thermal machines is typically a fluctuating quantity. We here study the efficiency large deviation function of two exemplary quantum heat engines, the harmonic oscillator and the two-level Otto cycles. While the efficiency statistics follows the universal theory of Verley et al. [Nature Commun. 5, 4721 (2014)] for nonadiabatic driving, we find that the latter framework does not apply in the adiabatic regime. We relate this unusual property to the perfect anticorrelation between work output and heat input that generically occurs in the broad class of scale-invariant adiabatic quantum Otto heat engines and suppresses thermal as well as quantum fluctuations.
Recent predictions for quantum-mechanical enhancements in the operation of small heat engines have raised renewed interest in their study from both a fundamental perspective and in view of applications. One essential question is whether collective effects may help to carry enhancements over larger scales, when increasing the number of systems composing the working substance of the engine. Such enhancements may consider not only power and efficiency, that is its performance, but, additionally, its constancy, i.e. the stability of the engine with respect to unavoidable environmental fluctuations. We explore this issue by introducing a many-body quantum heat engine model composed by spin pairs working in continuous operation. We study how power, efficiency and constancy scale with the number of spins composing the engine, and obtain analytical expressions in the macroscopic limit. Our results predict power enhancements, both in finite-size and macroscopic cases, for a broad range of system parameters and temperatures, without compromising the engine efficiency, as well as coherence-enhanced constancy for large but finite sizes. We also discuss these quantities in connection to Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relations (TUR).
This work brings together Keldysh non-equilibrium quantum theory and thermodynamics, by showing that a real-time diagrammatic technique is an equivalent of stochastic thermodynamics for non-Markovian quantum machines (heat engines, refrigerators, etc). Symmetries are found between quantum trajectories and their time-reverses on the Keldysh contour, for any interacting quantum system coupled to ideal reservoirs of electrons, phonons or photons. These lead to quantum fluctuation theorems the same as the well-known classical ones (Jarzynski and Crooks equalities, integral fluctuation theorem, etc), whether the systems dynamics are Markovian or not. Some of these are also shown to hold for non-factorizable initial states. The sequential tunnelling approximation and the cotunnelling approximation are both shown to respect the symmetries that ensure the fluctuation theorems. For all initial states, energy conservation ensures that the first law of thermodynamics holds on average, while the above symmetries ensures that the second law of thermodynamics holds on average, even if fluctuations violate it. [ERRATUM added: March 2021]
Given a quantum heat engine that operates in a cycle that reaches maximal efficiency for a time-dependent Hamiltonian H(t) of the working substance, with overall controllable driving H(t) = g(t) H, we study the deviation of the efficiency from the optimal value due to a generic time-independent perturbation in the Hamiltonian. We show that for a working substance consisting of two two-level systems, by suitably tuning the interaction, the deviation can be suppressed up to the third order in the perturbation parameter-and thus almost retaining the optimality of the engine.