Influence of quantum degeneracy on the performance of a gas Stirling engine cycle

Based on the state equation of an ideal quantum gas, the regenerative loss of a Stirling engine cycle working with an ideal quantum gas is calculated. Thermal efficiency of the cycle is derived. Furthermore, under the condition of quantum degeneracy, several special thermal efficiencies are discussed. Ratios of thermal efficiencies versus the temperature ratio and volume ratio of the cycle are made. It is found that the thermal efficiency of the cycle not only depends on high and low temperatures but also on maximum and minimum volumes. In a classical gas state the thermal efficiency of the cycle is equal to that of the Carnot cycle. In an ideal quantum gas state the thermal efficiency of the cycle is smaller than that of the Carnot cycle. This will be significant for deeper understanding of the gas Stirling engine cycle.     

Performance Analysis and Optimization for Irreversible Combined Carnot Heat Engine Working with Ideal Quantum Gases

An irreversible combined Carnot cycle model using ideal quantum gases as a working medium was studied by using finite-time thermodynamics. The combined cycle consisted of two Carnot sub-cycles in a cascade mode. Considering thermal resistance, internal irreversibility, and heat leakage losses, the power output and thermal efficiency of the irreversible combined Carnot cycle were derived by utilizing the quantum gas state equation. The temperature effect of the working medium on power output and thermal efficiency is analyzed by numerical method, the optimal relationship between power output and thermal efficiency is solved by the Euler-Lagrange equation, and the effects of different working mediums on the optimal power and thermal efficiency performance are also focused. The results show that there is a set of working medium temperatures that makes the power output of the combined cycle be maximum. When there is no heat leakage loss in the combined cycle, all the characteristic curves of optimal power versus thermal efficiency are parabolic-like ones, and the internal irreversibility makes both power output and efficiency decrease. When there is heat leakage loss in the combined cycle, all the characteristic curves of optimal power versus thermal efficiency are loop-shaped ones, and the heat leakage loss only affects the thermal efficiency of the combined Carnot cycle. Comparing the power output of combined heat engines with four types of working mediums, the two-stage combined Carnot cycle using ideal Fermi-Bose gas as working medium obtains the highest power output.     

Efficiency at Maximum Power Output of a Quantum-Mechanical Brayton Cycle

The performance in finite time of a quantum-mechanical Brayton engine cycle is discussed, without intro- duction of temperature. The engine model consists of two quantum isoenergetic and two quantum isobaric processes, and works with a single particle in a harmonic trap. Directly employing the finite-time thermodynamics, the efficiency at maximum power output is determined. Extending the harmonic trap to a power-law trap, we find that the efficiency at max/mum power is independent of any parameter involved in the model, but depends on the confinement of the trapping potential.     

Quantum heat engines, the second law and Maxwell's daemon

We introduce a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems, the simplest of quantum mechanical systems, undergoing quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths, respectively, at different stages of a cycle. Armed with this class of heat engines and some interpretation of heat transferred and work performed at the quantum level, we are able to clarify some important aspects of the second law of thermodynamics. In particular, it is not sufficient to have the heat source hotter than the sink, but there must be a minimum temperature difference between the hotter source and the cooler sink before any work can be extracted through the engines. The size of this minimum temperature difference is dictated by that of the energy gaps of the quantum engines involved. Our new quantum heat engines also offer a practical way, as an alternative to Szilard's engine, to physically realise Maxwell's daemon. Inspired and motivated by the Rabi oscillations, we further introduce some modifications to the quantum heat engines with single-mode cavities in order to, while respecting the second law, extract more work from the heat baths than is otherwise possible in thermal equilibria. Some of the results above are also generalisable to quantum heat engines of an infinite number of energy levels including 1-D simple harmonic oscillators and 1-D infinite square wells, or even special cases of continuous spectra.     

Performance of a two-state quantum engine improved by the superposition effect

The performance of a two-state quantum engine under different conditions is analyzed.It is shown that the efficiency of the quantum engine can be enhanced by superposing the eigenstates at the beginning of the cycle.By employing the finite-time movement of the potential wall,the power output of the quantum engine as well as the efficiency at the maximum power output(EMP) can be obtained.A generalized potential is adopted to describe a class of two-level quantum engines in a unified way.The results obtained show clearly that the performances of these engines depend on the external potential,the geometric configuration of the quantum engines,and the superposition effect.Moreover,it is found that the superposition effect will enlarge the optimally operating region of quantum engines.     

Optimization criteria of a Bose Brayton heat engine

An irreversible cycle model of the quantum Bose Brayton engine is established, in which finite-time processes and irreversibilities in two adiabatic processes are taken into account. Based on the model, expressions for the power output and the efficiency are derived. By using a numerical computation, the optimal relationship between the power output and the efficiency of an irreversible Bose Brayton engine is obtained. The optimal regions of the power output and the efficiency are determined. It is found that the influences of the irreversibility and the quantum degeneracy on the main performance parameters of the Bose Brayton engine are remarkable. The results obtained in the present paper can provide some new theoretical information for the optimal design and the performance improvement of a real Brayton engine.     

The kinematics of cosmic reheating

We calculate the relaxation rate of a scalar field in a plasma of other scalars and fermions with gauge interactions using thermal quantum field theory. It yields the rate of cosmic reheating and thereby determines the temperature of the “hot big bang” in inflationary cosmology. The total rate originates from various processes, including decays and inverse decays as well as Landau damping by scatterings. It involves quantum statistical effects and off-shell transport. Its temperature dependence can be highly non-trivial, making it impossible to express the reheating temperature in terms of the model parameters in a simple way. We pay special attention to the temperature dependence of the phase space due to the modified dispersion relations in the plasma. We find that it can have a drastic effect on the efficiency of perturbative reheating, which depends on the way particles in the primordial plasma interact. For some interactions thermal masses can effectively close the phase space for the dominant dissipative processes and thereby impose an upper bound on the reheating temperature. In other cases they open up new channels of dissipation, hence increase the reheating temperature. At high temperatures we find that the universe can even be heated through couplings to fermions, which are often assumed to be negligible due to Pauli-blocking. These effects may also be relevant for baryogenesis, dark matter production, the fate of moduli and in scenarios of warm inflation.     

带有Dzyaloshinski-Mariya相互作用的两比特纠缠量子Otto热机和量子Stirling热机

研究了以带有Dzyaloshinski-Mariya(DM)相互作用的两比特自旋体系为工质的量子纠缠Otto热机和量子Stirling热机.两种不同热机在各自的循环过程中,通过保持其他参量不变,只有DM相互作用发生改变,从而分析热机循环中DM相互作用与热传递、做功以及效率等热力学量之间的关系.研究结果表明:DM相互作用对两种热机的基本量子热力学量都具有重要的影响,但量子Stirling热机由于回热器的使用,其循环效率会大于量子Otto纠缠热机的效率,甚至会超过Carnot效率;得到了量子Otto纠缠热机和量子Stirling热机做正功的条件.因此,在这两个纠缠体系中,热力学第二定律都依然成立.     

Linear and nonlinear optics,dynamics, and lasing in ZnO bulk and nanostructures

In linear optics, we report on measurements of the absolute external quantum efficiency of bulk ZnO and powders using an integrating sphere. At low temperature the near band edge emission efficiency can reach 0.15 in the best samples. For deep center luminescence this value may be even higher. When going to room temperature (RT) the quantum efficiency drops by about one order of magnitude. From time resolved luminescence measurements we deduce the lifetime of the free and bound excitons to be in the sub ns regime and find for the latter a systematic increase with increasing binding energy.Concerning lasing, we discuss the role of excitonic processes and the recombination in an inverted electron–hole plasma (EHP). While excitonic processes seem well justified at lower temperatures and densities, doubts arise concerning the concept of excitonic lasing at RT in ZnO. The densities at laser threshold at RT are frequently close to the Mott density or above but below the density at which population inversion in an EHP is reached. We suggest alternative processes which can explain stimulated emission in this density regime in an EHP at RT.     

Entropy majorization, thermal adiabatic theorem, and quantum phase transitions

Let a general quantum many-body system at a low temperature adiabatically cross through the vicinity of the system’s quantum critical point. We show that the system’s temperature is significantly suppressed due to both the entropy majorization theorem in quantum information science and the entropy conservation law in reversible adiabatic processes. We take the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model and the spinless fermion system as concrete examples to show that the inverse temperature might become divergent around the systems’ critical points. Since the temperature is a measurable quantity in experiments, it can be used, via reversible adiabatic processes at low temperatures, to detect quantum phase transitions in the perspectives of quantum information science and quantum statistical mechanics.     

Relationships between temperature differences in heat exchangers of heat transformation devices

The temperatures which are present in a heat transformation device play a very important part: at first, the temperatures determine the maximum performance or efficiency of the cycle via the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Secondly, the temperatures determine the heat transfer area which is required to put a given heat flux through the system. Consequently, they relate power to investment cost. In order to elaborate further on these interdependencies, in this paper basic relationships between technically and thermodynamically relevant temperatures, as they are present in the heat exchangers, are being derived. To this end, we will define several temperature differences as usual: the temperature glide, the driving mean temperature difference and the thermodynamic or entropic mean temperature difference. The logarithmic temperature mean is significant for determining the heat transfer. It will be shown that, as long as the temperature gradient between external and internal fluids is larger than the difference in glide of both fluids, the log-mean can be substituted by the difference of the arithmetic mean temperatures. Consequently, it is almost identical to the entropic temperature difference. The entropic temperature difference is a measure of efficiency whereas the logarithmic temperature difference is a measure of first cost. As both temperature differences deviate only marginally from each other in most technical applications it will easily be possible to establish a relationship between performance and investment.     

The performance analysis of a micro-/nanoscaled quantum heat engine

A new model of micro-/nanoscaled heat engines consisting of two thin long tubes with the same length but different sizes of cross section, which are filled up with ideal quantum gases and operated between two heat reservoirs, is put forward. The working fluid of the heat engine cycle goes through four processes, which include two isothermal processes and two isobaric processes with constant longitudinal pressure. General expressions for the power output and efficiency of the cycle are derived, based on the thermodynamic properties of confined ideal quantum gases. The influence of the size effect on the power output and efficiency is discussed. The differences between the heat engines working with the ideal Bose gas and Fermi gas are revealed. The performance of the heat engines operating at weak gas degeneracy and high temperatures is further analyzed. The results obtained are more general and significant than those in the current literature.     

Power output and efficiency of quantum dot attached to ferromagnetic electrodes with non-collinear magnetic moments

Non-linear charge and heat transport through a single-level quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime is investigated within the framework of non-equilibrium Green function formalism and power output and efficiency of the device are studied. It is found that maximum power as well as efficiency depends on the relative orientation of magnetic moments in electrodes and can vary with polarization factor p. In general, power output is suppressed in magnetic systems and decreases with polarization. The highest efficiency can be attained in antiparallel configuration, and moreover, it does not depend on p. Spin power as well as spin efficiency of the system is introduced and discussed. It is also shown that in the Coulomb blockade regime the (spin) efficiency of the device operating under maximum power conditions varies with temperature bias in a non-monotonic way and shows a flat maximum for low ΔT.     

Second law of thermodynamics with discrete quantum feedback control

A new thermodynamic inequality is derived which leads to the maximum work that can be extracted from multi-heat-baths with the assistance of discrete quantum feedback control. The maximum work is determined by the free-energy difference and a generalized mutual information content between the thermodynamic system and the feedback controller. This maximum work can exceed that in conventional thermodynamics and, in the case of a heat cycle with two heat baths, the heat efficiency can be greater than that of the Carnot cycle. The consistency of our results with the second law of thermodynamics is ensured by the fact that work is needed for information processing of the feedback controller.     

Spontaneous and stimulated emission due to cooperative processes in cadmium telluride

The spontaneous and the stimulated emission of both undoped and n-type CdTe crystals have been studied in a wide temperature range under dye laser excitation. Optical gain spectra have been also measured. The competition among the cooperative processes resulting in luminescence of CdTe is governed by the sample temperature and the doping level. When the exciton—electron collision is dominant, i.e. in n-type samples, the highest quantum efficiency is also achieved.     

采用烟气再循环和燃烧室回注水的燃气轮机循环分析及优化

1前言采用燃气轮机排气做为再循环烟气并向燃烧室回注水等措施，不仅可保证一定的透平进气温度，而且可有效的减少NOx生成及压缩机耗功。但还有以下问题有待解决：（1）若再循环烟气温度较高，不利于提高系统效率。（2）如果燃烧室回注水取自周围环境，造成系统水消耗大。因此即要能使再循环烟气降温又能使系统用水尽量来自系统本身。冷凝式换热器可适应上述要求，通过把烟气冷却至露点以下，烟气中的水蒸气凝结为水，然后汽水混合物进入气水分离器，产生较低温度的再循环烟气，同时分离出液态水，经泵加压后作为燃烧室回注水使用。本文在…     

Can Quantum Correlations Lead to Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Quantum entanglement can cause the efficiency of a heat engine to be greater than the efficiency of the Carnot cycle. However, this does not mean a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, since there is no local equilibrium for pure quantum states, and, in the absence of local equilibrium, thermodynamics cannot be formulated correctly. Von Neumann entropy is not a thermodynamic quantity, although it can characterize the ordering of a system. In the case of the entanglement of the particles of the system with the environment, the concept of an isolated system should be refined. In any case, quantum correlations cannot lead to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics in any of its formulations. This article is devoted to a technical discussion of the expected results on the role of quantum entanglement in thermodynamics.     

玻色气体的量子简并性对不可逆布雷顿制冷循环性能的影响

基于不可逆布雷顿制冷循环模型和理想玻色气体的状态方程,导出以玻色气体为工质的布雷顿制冷循环的输入功、制冷系数、制冷量等重要参数的表示式,由此讨论玻色气体的量子简并性和不可逆绝热过程对循环性能的影响,揭示以玻色气体为工质的不可逆布雷顿制冷循环的一般性能特性,从而导出一些重要结论．进而给出几种特殊情况下循环的性能特性．得到的结果有助于进一步了解经典布雷顿制冷循环和量子布雷顿制冷循环之间的区别和联系．     

非等温耦合模型下大功率LED特性的研究

本文建立了发光二极管(LED)芯片的非等温多物理场耦合模型。结果表明,芯片内热源集中在多量子阱(MQWs)区域,且靠近p-GaN的第一个量子阱(QW)内的内热源强度最高;焦耳热和非辐射复合热贡献大,而汤姆逊热和帕尔帖热贡献小,可忽略。等温模型与非等温模型的对比表明,在大电流或低冷却能力条件下,芯片内部与芯片衬底温差显著,等温模型无法准确预测芯片性能,需采用非等温模型。