{
  "id": "0908.2076",
  "version": "v2",
  "published": "2009-08-14T14:42:08.000Z",
  "updated": "2010-08-31T18:18:46.000Z",
  "title": "How small can thermal machines be? The smallest possible refrigerator",
  "authors": [
    "Noah Linden",
    "Sandu Popescu",
    "Paul Skrzypczyk"
  ],
  "comment": "6 pages, 7 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett",
  "journal": "Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 130401 (2010)",
  "doi": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.130401",
  "categories": [
    "quant-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "We investigate the fundamental dimensional limits to thermodynamic machines. In particular we show that it is possible to construct self-contained refrigerators (i.e. not requiring external sources of work) consisting of only a small number of qubits and/or qutrits. We present three different models, consisting of two qubits, a qubit and a qutrit with nearest-neighbour interactions, and a single qutrit respectively. We then investigate fundamental limits to their performance; in particular we show that it is possible to cool towards absolute zero.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v2",
      "updated": "2010-08-31T18:18:46.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "subjects": [
      "03.65.Ta",
      "03.67.-a",
      "05.30.-d",
      "05.70.-a"
    ],
    "keywords": [
      "thermal machines",
      "fundamental dimensional limits",
      "absolute zero",
      "fundamental limits",
      "thermodynamic machines"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "publisher": "APS",
      "journal": "Physical Review Letters",
      "year": 2010,
      "month": "Sep",
      "volume": 105,
      "number": 13,
      "pages": 130401
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 6,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "adsabs": "2010PhRvL.105m0401L"
    }
  }
}