Title: Quantum performance of microscopic heat engines

Time: Tuesday,  4:00pm, Dec. 10^th, 2019

Location: Yuquan  Campus, Teaching Building 12, Room 201  

Abstract: Heat engines are devices that convert thermal energy into mechanical work in a consecutive manner. Advances in technology so far have enabled us to downsize the heat engines and recent development spurred the fabrication of heat engines at the submicron to nanoscale. Especially in the last decade, great attention has been paid to so-called quantum heat engines (QHEs) [1], microscopic heat engines whose working substance is a quantum system. Since the behavior of the working substance is governed by quantum mechanics, QHEs are expected to show exotic properties, which cannot be obtained in conventional macroscopic counterparts governed by classical mechanics (e.g., [2-5]). In this talk, first I will overview recent experiments on QHEs and will briefly cover basic notions of thermodynamic processes in small quantum systems. Then I will explain our recent works on the performance of QHEs. Namely, the one on the enhancement of work output by a QHE over multiple cycles [6] and the one on the quantum statistical enhancement of work output by an ensemble of multiple indistinguishable QHEs [7].