Date/Time
Venue
SPS Seminar Room
Speaker
Dr. Victor Mukherjee
Affiliation
Weizmann Institute, Israel
We present a comprehensive theory of heat engines based on a quantum-mechanical "working fluid" with periodically-modulated energy levels. The theory is valid for any periodicity of driving Hamiltonians that commute with themselves at all times and do not induce coherence in the working fluid. Continuous and stroke cycles arise in opposite limits of this theory, which encompasses hitherto unfamiliar 'hybrid' cycle forms. The theory allows us to discover the speed, power and efficiency limits attainable by incoherently-operating multilevel heat engines depending on the cycle form and the dynamical regimes. The theory ventures into the unexplored non-Markovian and non-rotating wave dynamical heat engine regimes.