Active Refrigerators Powered by Inertia

Abstract

We present the operational principle for a refrigerator which uses inertial effects in active Brownian particles to locally reduce their (kinetic) temperature by two orders of magnitude below the environmental temperature. This principle exploits the peculiar but so-far unknown shape of the phase diagram of inertial active Brownian particles to initiate motility-induced phase separation in the targeted cooling regime only. Remarkably, active refrigerators operate without requiring isolating walls opening the route towards using them to systematically absorb and trap, e.g., toxic substances from the environment.