The Anyonic Quantum Carnot Engine

Abstract

Combining two disparate lines of thought like thermodynamics and quantum mechanics yields surprising results. The resulting idea of quantum thermodynamic engines holds promise for harvesting novel sources of energy of purely quantum origin, like quantum statistics, to extract mechanical work from macroscopic quantum systems like Bose-Einstein condensates. It also allows one to explore thermodynamic thinking to `small' systems consisting only a few particles in quantum theory. In an earlier paper we had studied the quantum Otto engine using a small number of one-dimensional anyons as the medium to drive the thermodynamic engine. In this sequel, we study the gold-standard of thermodynamic engines, namely the Carnot engine, using two-dimensional anyons as the medium. An explicit expression is derived for the efficiency of the anyonic quantum Carnot engine.