Optimal performance of endoreversible quantum refrigerators

Abstract

The derivation of general performance benchmarks is important in the design of highly optimized heat engines and refrigerators. To obtain them, one may model phenomenologically the leading sources of irreversibility ending up with results which are model-independent, but limited in scope. Alternatively, one can take a simple physical system realizing a thermodynamic cycle and assess its optimal operation from a complete microscopic description. We follow this approach in order to derive the coefficient of performance at maximum cooling rate for \textit{any} endoreversible quantum refrigerator. At striking variance with the \textit{universality} of the optimal efficiency of heat engines, we find that the cooling performance at maximum power is crucially determined by the details of the specific system-bath interaction mechanism. A closed analytical benchmark is found for endoreversible refrigerators weakly coupled to unstructured bosonic heat baths: an ubiquitous case study in quantum thermodynamics.

4+3 pages, 2 figures. Presentation improved and expanded

References in corpus (3)

• Performance bound for quantum absorption refrigerators
• Universal features in the efficiency of ultra hot quantum Otto engines
• Entanglement control via reservoir engineering in ultracold atomic gases

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Finding the quantum thermoelectric with maximal efficiency and minimal entropy production at given power output
• The thermodynamics of creating correlations: Limitations and optimal protocols
• Enabling the self-contained refrigerator to work beyond its limits by filtering the reservoir
• Performance of continuous quantum thermal devices indirectly connected to environments