We present here a quantum Carnot engine in which the atoms in the heat bath are given a small bit of quantum coherence. The induced quantum coherence becomes vanishingly small in the high-temperature limit at which we operate and the heat bath is essentially thermal. However, the phase φ, associated with the atomic coherence, provides a new control parameter that can be varied to increase the temperature of the radiation field and to extract work from a single heat bath. The deep physics behind the second law of thermodynamics is not violated; nevertheless, the quantum Carnot engine has certain features that are not possible in a classical engine.
CITATION STYLE
Scully, M. O., Suhail Zubairy, M., Agarwal, G. S., & Walther, H. (2003). Extracting work from a single heat bath via vanishing quantum coherence. Science, 299(5608), 862–864. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1078955
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