Physical implementations of quantum absorption refrigerators

TL;DR

This paper reviews quantum implementations of absorption refrigerators in cavity and circuit QED, highlighting their theoretical description via virtual temperature and comparing their performance and potential future directions.

Contribution

It provides a unified theoretical framework for quantum absorption refrigerators and compares two physical realizations in cavity and circuit QED.

Findings

Unified description using virtual temperature

Comparison of cavity and circuit QED setups

Discussion of performance and future prospects

Abstract

Absorption refrigerators are autonomous thermal machines that harness the spontaneous flow of heat from a hot bath into the environment in order to perform cooling. Here we discuss quantum realizations of absorption refrigerators in two different settings: namely, cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics. We first provide a unified description of these machines in terms of the concept of virtual temperature. Next, we describe the two different physical setups in detail and compare their properties and performance. We conclude with an outlook on future work and open questions in this field of research.