Microscopic low-dissipation heat engine via shortcuts to adiabaticity and shortcuts to isothermality

TL;DR

This paper models a microscopic low-dissipation heat engine using a Brownian particle with shortcuts to adiabaticity and isothermality, deriving efficiency expressions and analyzing power limits.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic model employing shortcuts to realize thermodynamic cycles and derives analytical efficiency at maximum power, extending understanding of low-dissipation engines.

Findings

Efficiency at maximum power follows universal law up to second order.

Derived analytical expression for efficiency at maximum power.

Identified maximum power limits in different regimes.

Abstract

We construct a microscopic model of low-dissipation engines by driving a Brownian particle in a time-dependent harmonic potential. Shortcuts to adiabaticity and shortcuts to isothermality are introduced to realize the adiabatic and isothermal branches in a thermodynamic cycle, respectively. We derive an analytical expression of the efficiency at maximum power for this kind of engines. This expression satisfies the universal law of efficiency at maximum power up to the second order of the Carnot efficiency. We also analyze the issue of power at any given efficiency for general low-dissipation engines, and then obtain the supremum of the power in three limiting cases respectively.