Single Particle Stochastic Heat Engine
Priyo Shankar Pal
The concept of heat engines is a classical subject in thermodynamics. These are cyclic engines where external parameters and temperature of heat bath is varied periodically in time, e.g., the Carnot, Stirling and the Otto cycle. The efficiency of these heat engines (in the quasistatic regime) are bounded by Carnot limit. In finite time thermodynamics, one of the most important result is the efficiency at maximum power (Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency). In the recent years, researchers are investigating behaviour of different thermodynamic quantities for microscopic models of heat engines and how to achieve these efficiencies. With the advances in technology, micrometer-sized Stirling and Carnot heat engines has been experimentally realised. Here we will discuss about single particle heat engines and its stochastic features.