Universal optimization efficiency and bounds of Carnot-like heat engines and refrigerators under shortcuts to isothermality

TL;DR

This paper investigates the fundamental efficiency bounds of Carnot-like heat engines and refrigerators using shortcuts to isothermality, providing universal limits and optimal performance criteria in quantum thermodynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework for optimizing heat engines and refrigerators with quantum shortcuts, deriving universal bounds and efficiency metrics.

Findings

Universal efficiency bounds for heat engines and refrigerators.

Optimal performance criteria under chi and omega measures.

Bounds are attainable in highly asymmetric conditions.

Abstract

Based on a quantum thermodynamic protocol for shortcut to isothermality that smoothly modify the system-reservoir interaction can significantly speed up an isothermal process while keeping the overall dissipation constant [Phys. Rev. X. 10, 031015 (2020)], we extend the study of optimization performance of Carnot-like heat engines and refrigerators in a straightforward and unified way. We derive the universal optimization efficiency of heat engines and the optimization coefficient of performance of refrigerators under two unified optimization criterions, i.e., chi criterion and omega criterion. We also derived the universal lower and upper bounds for heat engines and refrigerators, and found that these bounds can be reached under extremely asymmetric cases.