Brownian Carnot Cycle with Thermal Fluctuations Modeled Using a Non-Gaussian Distribution

In this paper, we study a class of cyclic Brownian heat engines within the same framework as Schmiedl et al. We assumed that, during the isothermal steps, the probability distribution evolves according to the Fokker–Planck equation; however, unlike Schmiedl et al., we assumed that the initial probability is a Tsallis probability distribution. Within this aforementioned model, we can obtain the maximum power output, the entropy, the cycle durations and the efficiency of this stochastic engine. Although the maximum output power, the entropy and the cycle durations are different, the efficiency is similar to those obtained by Schmiedl et al. under a low-dissipation framework. This suggests that the efficiency could be independent of the probability distribution used.