Microcanonical Szil\'ard engines beyond the quasistatic regime

Abstract

We discuss the possibility of extracting energy from a single thermal bath using microcanonical Szil\'ard engines operating in finite time. This extends previous works on the topic which are restricted to the quasistatic regime. The feedback protocol is implemented based on linear response predictions of the excess work. It is claimed that the underlying mechanism leading to energy extraction does not violate Liouville's theorem and preserves ergodicity throughout the cycle. We illustrate our results with several examples including an exactly solvable model.