Atomic-superfluid heat engines controlled by twisted light

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum heat engine using a Bose-Einstein condensate in a cavity with twisted light, demonstrating control over efficiency via orbital angular momentum and finite-time operation strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quantum heat engine design leveraging polaritonic modes controlled by twisted light, with analysis of efficiency and finite-time operation.

Findings

Efficiency depends on orbital angular momentum.

Reversible switching of polaritonic modes enables work extraction.

Finite-time operation retains ideal efficiency using shortcuts to adiabaticity.

Abstract

We theoretically propose a quantum heat engine using a setup consisting of a ring-trapped Bose-Einstein condensate placed in a Fabry-P\'erot cavity where the optical field carries orbital angular momentum. We first show that the cavity-enhanced light-atom coupling leads to the emergence of polaritonic modes whose character can be reversibly switched between photonlike and phononlike by detuning sweeps, allowing work extraction governed by distinct reservoirs. We investigate the dependence of the engine efficiency on the orbital angular momentum. Beyond ideality, we discuss finite-time scenarios based on shortcuts to adiabaticity such that the efficiency retains its ideal-operation value, despite finite-time operation. Our analysis identifies orbital angular momentum as a control knob that can reconfigure the performance of such quantum heat engines.