1307.4182 (Jiawen Deng et al.)

Boosting work characteristics and overall heat engine performance via
accelerated adiabatic control: quantum and classical    [PDF]

Jiawen Deng, Qing-hai Wang, Zhihao Liu, Peter Hanggi, Jiangbin Gong

It is now known that quantum control techniques can accelerate quantum adiabatic processes. This idea is extended to classical adiabatic processes under a general framework. We focus on the distribution function of the work done on a small system initially prepared at thermal equilibrium. It is found that the work fluctuations can be significantly reduced. For example, in the classical case probabilities of having very large or almost zero work values are suppressed. In the quantum case negative work may be totally removed from the otherwise non-positive-definite work values. We apply our findings to a micro Otto-cycle-based heat engine. It is shown that the use of accelerated adiabatic processes, which directly enhance the engine output power, can also increase the heat engine efficiency substantially, in both quantum and classical regimes.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.4182