Unified approach to power-efficiency trade-off relations of generic thermal machines.
We present a general framework for determining the power-efficiency trade-off relations across arbitrary thermal machines, addressing the lack of unified optimization results stemming from their diverse functionalities (e.g., heat engines, refrigerators, and heat pumps). For time-dependent cycle irreversibility A(τ) following a τ^{-α} power law, where α is an interaction-dependent parameter, we show that engineering the interactions between thermal machines and reservoirs enables control over the trade-off relations, with the efficiency at maximum power approaching Carnot efficiency as α increases. Setting α=1 naturally recovers typical low-dissipation regime results. Additionally, we derive the first power-efficiency trade-off for finite-time quantum adiabatic Otto machines with τ^{-2}-scaling. This work establishes a unified constraint for thermodynamic cycles across nonequilibrium regimes, facilitating consistent optimization of diverse thermal devices in practice.
Authors
- Yuhan Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9768-9171)
- Cong Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0905-2564)
Institutions
- Xiamen University (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- PubMed
- Published
- 2025-11-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/bvlw-rvvv
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00