Work extraction from heat-powered quantized optomechanical setups

TL;DR

This paper investigates how to extract work from a heat-powered optomechanical system, highlighting the importance of the initial state of the mechanical oscillator and showing that coherence is not necessary for work extraction from a heat bath.

Contribution

It demonstrates that initial state preparation affects work extraction efficiency and shows work can be extracted without coherence, unlike laser-driven systems.

Findings

Lower initial mean amplitude increases efficiency.

Work extraction does not require coherence or phase-locking.

Initial phase-averaged coherent states can yield work.

Abstract

We analyze work extraction from an autonomous (self-contained) heat-powered optomechanical setup. The initial state of the quantized mechanical oscillator plays a key role. As the initial mean amplitude of the oscillator decreases, the resulting efficiency increases. In contrast to laser-powered self-induced oscillations, work extraction from a broadband heat bath does not require coherence or phase-locking: an initial phase-averaged coherent state of the oscillator still yields work, as opposed to an initial Fock-state.