{
  "id": "1703.10024",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2017-03-29T13:19:20.000Z",
  "updated": "2017-03-29T13:19:20.000Z",
  "title": "Squeezed thermal reservoirs as a resource for a nano-mechanical engine beyond the Carnot limit",
  "authors": [
    "Jan Klaers",
    "Stefan Faelt",
    "Atac Imamoglu",
    "Emre Togan"
  ],
  "comment": "21 pages",
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.mes-hall",
    "cond-mat.quant-gas",
    "cond-mat.stat-mech"
  ],
  "abstract": "The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot [1], it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper limit - the Carnot limit. Advances in micro- and nano-technology however, allow for testing concepts derived from thermodynamics in limits where the underlying assumptions no longer hold [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Extremely miniaturized forms of heat engines have been experimentally realized, where the working medium is represented by a single particle instead of 10^23 particles as in the macroscopic world [8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Theoretical studies suggest that the efficiency of heat engines may overcome the Carnot limit by employing stationary, non-equilibrium reservoirs that are characterized by a temperature as well as further parameters, for example quantum coherent [13], quantum correlated [14, 15] and squeezed thermal reservoirs [16, 17, 18]. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate that the efficiency of a nano-beam heat engine coupled to squeezed thermal noise is not bounded by the standard Carnot limit. Remarkably, we also show that it is possible to design a cyclic process that allows for extraction of mechanical work from a single squeezed thermal reservoir. Our results demonstrate a qualitatively new regime of non-equilibrium thermodynamics at small scales and provide a new perspective on the design of efficient, highly miniaturized engines [19].",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2017-03-29T13:19:20.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "nano-mechanical engine",
      "fundamental upper limit",
      "mechanical work",
      "nano-beam heat engine",
      "standard carnot limit"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 21,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}