2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Exploiting quantum phase transitions to improve the efficiency of quantum thermodynamic processes
| Project/Area Number |
18K13507
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 13030:Magnetism, superconductivity and strongly correlated systems-related
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| Research Institution | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University |
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Principal Investigator |
Fogarty Thomas 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, 量子システム研究ユニット, 研究員 (60786987)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | heat engines / quantum control / correlations / speed limits |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This project showed that many-body cooperative effects can improve the operation of a quantum heat engine near a critical point. The engine cycle was driven between the superfluid and insulating phases of a strongly correlated 1D cold atomic gas. These different phases have distinct energy spectra which are differentiated by a tunable energy gap. Operating the engine cycle near this gap can improve the efficiency and power output when compared to a non-interacting single particle engine, showing that many-body effects can be exploited in such systems.
Driving this cycle on short timescales can be difficult due to the creation of unwanted irreversible excitations at the critical point. These can harm the efficiency of the cycle and are a consequence of using complex many-body states. However, I showed that an approximate shortcut to adiabaticity can be designed to ensure fast and frictionless cycles on short times.
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| Free Research Field |
Quantum thermodynamics
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
While quantum thermal machines are well described for single particle and discrete systems, there is a lack of works addressing continuous many-body states. This work addressed this issue in a complex yet experimentally realizable setup, paving the way for experiments on many-body cold atom engines.
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