Multi-stage quantum absorption heat pumps

Abstract

It is well known that heat pumps, while being all limited by the same basic thermodynamic laws, may find realization on systems as "small" and "quantum" as a three-level maser. In order to quantitatively assess how the performance of these devices scales with their size, we design generalized $N$-dimensional ideal heat pumps by merging $N-2$ elementary three-level stages. We set them to operate in the absorption chiller mode between given hot and cold baths, and study their maximum achievable cooling power and the corresponding efficiency as a function of $N$. While the efficiency at maximum power is roughly size-independent, the power itself slightly increases with the dimension, quickly saturating to a constant. Thus, interestingly, scaling up autonomous quantum heat pumps does not render a significant enhancement beyond the optimal double-stage configuration.

7 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (35)

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• Small quantum absorption refrigerator in the transient regime: time scales, enhanced cooling and entanglement
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• Realising a quantum absorption refrigerator with an atom-cavity system
• Quantum coherence, many-body correlations, and non-thermal effects for autonomous thermal machines
• Absorption refrigerators based on Coulomb-coupled single-electron systems
• Quantum thermodynamically consistent local master equations
• Optimal performance of endoreversible quantum refrigerators
• Internal dissipation and heat leaks in quantum thermodynamic cycles
• Three-qubit refrigerator with two-body interactions
• A small quantum absorption refrigerator with reversed couplings
• Collective effects on the performance and stability of quantum heat engines
• Quantum thermal machine acting on a many-body quantum system: role of correlations in thermodynamic tasks
• Qubit absorption refrigerator at strong coupling
• Two-body quantum absorption refrigerators with optomechanical-like interactions
• Thermodynamics of quantum feedback cooling
• Classical emulation of quantum-coherent thermal machines
• Nonlinear chiral refrigerators
• Quantum features and signatures of quantum-thermal machines
• Universal bounds on cooling power and cooling efficiency for autonomous absorption refrigerators
• Enabling the self-contained refrigerator to work beyond its limits by filtering the reservoir
• Relation between topology and heat currents in multilevel absorption machines
• Superconductor-quantum dot hybrid coolers
• Designing refrigerators in higher dimensions using quantum spin models
• Linear response theory for quantum Gaussian processes
• Efficiency of inefficient endoreversible thermal machines
• Dimensional advantage in secure information trading via the noisy dense coding protocol
• Testing a Quantum Heat Pump with a Two-Level Spin
• Performance of continuous quantum thermal devices indirectly connected to environments
• Refrigeration via purification through repeated measurements
• Phase-controlled heat modulation with Aharonov-Bohm interferometers
• Security of deterministic key distribution with higher-dimensional systems
• Revealing effects of local dimension on variable-range interacting model by connecting Lieb-Robinson bounds and multipartite entanglement