Pre-Cooling Strategy Allows Exponentially Faster Heating

TL;DR

This paper introduces a pre-cooling strategy that enables exponentially faster heating of systems in temperature-controlled environments, challenging the intuition of always using the hottest temperature.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel optimal protocol for heating that includes a pre-cooling stage, demonstrated on many-body systems like the 2D antiferromagnet Ising model.

Findings

Pre-cooling can significantly reduce heating time.

Optimal protocols may involve cooling before heating.

Applicable to many-body systems like the 2D Ising model.

Abstract

What is the fastest way to heat a system which is coupled to a temperature controlled oven? The intuitive answer is to use only the hottest temperature available. However, we show that often it is possible to achieve an exponentially faster heating, and propose a strategy to find the optimal protocol. Surprisingly, this protocol can have a pre-cooling stage -- cooling the system before heating it shortens the heating time significantly. This approach can be applied to many-body systems, as we demonstrate in the 2D antiferromagnet Ising model.