Degree of coupling and efficiency of energy converters far-from-equilibrium

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a real symmetric and positive semi-definite matrix, which we call the non-equilibrium conductance matrix, and which generalizes the Onsager response matrix for a system in a non-equilibrium stationary state. We then express the thermodynamic efficiency in terms of the coefficients of this matrix using a parametrization similar to the one used near equilibrium. This framework, then valid arbitrarily far from equilibrium allows to set bounds on the thermodynamic efficiency by a universal function depending only on the degree of coupling between input and output currents. It also leads to new general power-efficiency trade-offs valid for macroscopic machines that are compared to trade-offs previously obtained from uncertainty relations. We illustrate our results on an unicycle heat to heat converter and on a discrete model of molecular motor.

24 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The large deviation approach to statistical mechanics
• Universal bound on the efficiency of molecular motors
• Efficiency statistics at all times: Carnot limit at finite power
• Fluctuation theorem and large deviation function for a solvable model of a molecular motor

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Unified thermodynamic uncertainty relations in linear response
• Multidimensional thermodynamic uncertainty relations
• Hysteretic thermodynamic uncertainty relation for systems with broken time-reversal symmetry
• Efficiency fluctuations of stochastic machines undergoing a phase transition
• Phase transitions in optimal strategies for betting
• Linear Stochastic Thermodynamics
• General linear thermodynamics for periodically driven systems with multiple reservoirs
• An ordered set of power-efficiency trade-offs
• Infinite variety of thermodynamic speed limits with general activities
• Thermodynamic Circuits I: Association of devices in stationary nonequilibrium
• Force-current structure in Markovian open quantum systems and its applications: geometric housekeeping-excess decomposition and thermodynamic trade-off relations
• Dynamical equivalence classes for Markov jump processes
• Thermodynamic Circuits: Modeling chemical reaction networks with nonequilibrium conductance matrices
• Generalized free energy and excess/housekeeping decomposition in nonequilibrium systems: from large deviations to thermodynamic speed limits
• Thermodynamic Circuits: Association of thermoelectric converters in stationary non-equilibrium