Exploring the operation of a tiny heat engine

Abstract

We model a tiny heat engine as a Brownian particle that moves in a viscous medium in a sawtooth potential (with or without load) assisted by $alternately$ placed hot and cold heat baths along its path. We find closed form expression for the steady state current as a function of the model parameters. This enables us to deal with the energetics of the model and evaluate either its efficiency or its coefficient of performance depending upon whether the model functions either as a heat engine or as a refrigerator, respectively. We also study the way current changes with changes in parameters of interest. When we plot the phase diagrams showing the way the model operates, we not only find regions where it functions as a heat engine and as a refrigerator but we also identify a region where the model functions as neither of the two.

8 pages and 13 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Tight coupling in thermal Brownian motors
• Energetics of a simple microscopic heat engine

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Fundamental aspects of steady-state conversion of heat to work at the nanoscale
• Inertial effects in B{ü}ttiker-Landauer Motor and Refrigerator at the Overdamped Limit
• Modeling an efficient Brownian heat engine
• Fundamental aspects of steady state heat to work conversion
• Stochastic energetics of a Brownian motor and refrigerator driven by non-uniform temperature
• Unattainability of Carnot efficiency in thermal motors: Coarse-graining and entropy production of Feynman-Smoluchowski ratchet