Carnot Cycle at Finite Power: Attainability of Maximal Efficiency / Allahverdyan Armen E.,Hovhannisyan Karen V.,Melkikh Alexey V.,Gevorkian Sasun G. // PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS. - 2013. - V. 111, l. 5.

ISSN/EISSN:

0031-9007 / нет данных

Type:

Article

Abstract:

We want to understand whether and to what extent the maximal (Carnot) efficiency for heat engines can be reached at a finite power. To this end we generalize the Carnot cycle so that it is not restricted to slow processes. We show that for realistic (i.e., not purposefully designed) engine-bath interactions, the work-optimal engine performing the generalized cycle close to the maximal efficiency has a long cycle time and hence vanishing power. This aspect is shown to relate to the theory of computational complexity. A physical manifestation of the same effect is Levinthal's paradox in the protein folding problem. The resolution of this paradox for realistic proteins allows to construct engines that can extract at a finite power 40\% of the maximally possible work reaching 90\% of the maximal efficiency. For purposefully designed engine-bath interactions, the Carnot efficiency is achievable at a large power.

Author keywords:

нет данных

DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.050601

Web of Science ID:

ISI:000322777400001

Соавторы в МНС:

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Другие поля

Поле	Значение
Month	AUG 1
Publisher	AMER PHYSICAL SOC
Address	ONE PHYSICS ELLIPSE, COLLEGE PK, MD 20740-3844 USA
Language	English
Article-Number	050601
Research-Areas	Physics
Web-of-Science-Categories	Physics, Multidisciplinary
ORCID-Numbers	Hovhannisyan, Karen/0000-0001-5034-4328
Funding-Acknowledgement	{[}FIS2010-14830]; {[}NSC 101-2811-M-001-156]
Funding-Text	K. V. H. is supported by the Spanish project FIS2010-14830. S. G. G. is supported by Grant No. NSC 101-2811-M-001-156.
Number-of-Cited-References	19
Usage-Count-Since-2013	22
Journal-ISO	Phys. Rev. Lett.
Doc-Delivery-Number	196LQ