Thermodynamic bound on heat to power conversion

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that interacting systems can surpass traditional thermodynamic bounds on heat-to-work efficiency, achieving high efficiency and power simultaneously without delta-energy filtering.

Contribution

It reveals that interactions enable systems to reach Carnot efficiency at finite power, overcoming previous efficiency bounds in steady-state heat to work conversion.

Findings

Interacting systems can surpass the scattering theory bound.

Systems can achieve Carnot efficiency at the thermodynamic limit.

High efficiencies are possible without significant power reduction.

Abstract

In systems described by the scattering theory, there is an upper bound, lower than Carnot, on the efficiency of steady-state heat to work conversion at a given output power. We show that interacting systems can overcome such bound and saturate, in the thermodynamic limit, the much more favorable linear-response bound. This result is rooted in the possibility for interacting systems to achieve the Carnot efficiency at the thermodynamic limit without delta-energy filtering, so that large efficiencies can be obtained without greatly reducing power.