Thermoelectric transport in billiard systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates how particle interactions in billiard systems influence thermoelectric efficiency, showing that interactions reduce maximum efficiency but do not affect the mechanism for approaching Carnot efficiency.

Contribution

It extends previous work on noninteracting gases by analyzing the impact of particle interactions on thermoelectric transport and efficiency.

Findings

Interaction reduces maximal thermodynamic efficiency.

Mechanism for approaching Carnot limit remains unaffected.

Analytical expressions for interacting systems are discussed.

Abstract

We discuss the thermoelectric (TE) transport in billiard systems of interacting particles, coupled to stochastic particle reservoirs. Recently in [1], analytical exact expressions for the TE transport of noninteracting gases of polyatomic molecules were obtained, and a novel microscopic mechanism for the increase of thermoelectric efficiency described. After briefly reviewing the derivation of [1], in this paper we focus on the effects that the particle-particle interaction has on the TE efficiency. We show that interaction reduces the maximal thermodynamic efficiency. However, the mechanism for the efficiency's increase towards its Carnot upper limit, described in [1], remains unaffected.