Minimal Model for Carnot Efficiency at Maximum Power
Carnot efficiency sets a fundamental upper bound on the heat engine efficiency, attainable in the quasistatic limit, albeit at the cost of completely sacrificing power output. Here, we present a minimal heat engine model that can attain Carnot efficiency while achieving maximum power output. We unveil the potential of intrinsic divergent physical quantities within the working substance, such as degeneracy, as promising thermodynamic resources to break through the universal power-efficiency trade-off imposed by nonequilibrium thermodynamics for conventional heat engines. Our findings provide novel insights into the collective advantage in harnessing energy of many-body interacting systems.
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Liang, S., Ma, Y. H., Busiello, D. M., & De Los Rios, P. (2025). Minimal Model for Carnot Efficiency at Maximum Power. Physical Review Letters, 134(2), Article 027101. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.027101
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2-s2.0-85214946190
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Beijing Normal University
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
2025-01-17
134
2
027101
REVIEWED
EPFL