Quantum Supremacy of Many-Particle Thermal Machines

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a nonadiabatic quantum heat engine with a many-particle Bose gas can outperform classical and single-particle engines, achieving quantum supremacy in efficiency and power.

Contribution

It introduces a many-particle quantum heat engine that leverages nonadiabatic and quantum effects to surpass classical performance limits.

Findings

The quantum engine outperforms classical counterparts in efficiency.

Many-particle effects enhance power output.

Quantum supremacy is demonstrated in thermal machine performance.

Abstract

While the emergent field of quantum thermodynamics has the potential to impact energy science, the performance of thermal machines is often classical. We ask whether quantum effects can boost the performance of a thermal machine to reach quantum supremacy, i.e., surpassing both the efficiency and power achieved in classical thermodynamics. To this end, we introduce a nonadiabatic quantum heat engine operating an Otto cycle with a many-particle working medium, consisting of an interacting Bose gas confined in a time-dependent harmonic trap. It is shown that thanks to the interplay of nonadiabatic and many-particle quantum effects, this thermal machine can outperform an ensemble of single-particle heat engines with same resources, demonstrating quantum supremacy in many-particle thermal machines.