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We study the performance of a cyclic heat engine which uses a small system with a finite number of ultracold atoms as its working substance and works between two heat reservoirs at constant temperatures T h and T c (

We derive an exact recursive scheme to determine exactly the microcanonical partition function of a finite Bose system. Such a recursive approach is identical to that previously obtained within the context of counting statistics. Within the exact microcanonical ensemble, we study microcanonical finite-size scaling behaviors of condensate fraction and specific heat around the critical energy ϵ c for the finite ideal Bose system. We show that the microcanonical scaling functions governing the various critical behaviors are universal in the ideal Bose-Einstein condensates.

A numerical model of a nano-scaled thermoelectric heat engine with InP/InAs/InP trilayer quantum well (QW) is investigated. The expressions of those performance parameters, such as current, power output, and efficiency are expressed. By numerical calculation, the resonant tunneling behavior of electrons in the QW is described, which seems like a very good energy selective electron mechanism for the heat engine. After considering the radiation heat leakage, for fixed layer thicknesses of the QW, the optimum working regions of the heat engine with respect to the chemical potentials and the bias voltage are obtained numerically under the economic criterion. From these results, the power output can be increased by narrowing down the layer thicknesses. In addition, owing to the radiant heat leakage, the efficiency initially increases in the working regions and then decreases when the layer thicknesses increase gradually, from which one can obtain a maximum efficiency by optimizing layer thicknesses of QW. These results calculated here may provide a guide for the optimum designs of tunneling thermoelectric devices.

The unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the k-ω SST turbulence model are solved to obtain the steady and unsteady aerodynamic forces for airfoils and wings. The effects of vibration types and amplitudes on aerodynamic forces of airfoils and wings are studied. The deformation characteristics of a swept wing induced by steady aerodynamic load are presented. It is found that for a vibrating elastic wing at small and medium incidences, its mean aerodynamic loads are almost the same as those obtained from the static one. On the contrary, at high incidences especially around the stall incidence, the vibration may change the mean values. In addition, the larger amplitude is, the larger discrepancy will be. For a swept wing, the steady aerodynamic loads usually lead to the “pitching down” effect on the wing tip which delays the stall compared with a rigid one; But this phenomenon dose not occur on a aeroelastic wing which can induce the separation ahead and trigger the stall. The above conclusions are in good agreement with the scatter characteristics of wind-tunnel data. The reason why the data obtained from wind tunnel and CFD are different is also analyzed. Meanwhile, it can be an explanation for scatter phenomenon of wind-tunnel data, especially for high incidence cases, which remains a puzzle so far.

Based on a two-qubit isotropic Heisenberg XXX model with a constant external magnetic field, we construct a four-level entangled quantum heat engine (QHE). The expressions for several thermodynamic quantities such as the heat transferred, the work and efficiency are derived. Moreover, the influence of the entanglement on the thermodynamic quantities is investigated analytically and numerically. Several interesting features of the variation of the heat transferred, the work and the efficiency with the concurrences of the thermal entanglement of different thermal equilibrium states are obtained.

Within an exact canonical-ensemble treatment, we investigate the thermodynamics for a finite number of ideal bosons confined in a three-dimensional quartic trap. We calculate several physical quantities including the specific heat C N , chemical potential μ, condensate fraction 〈n 0〉/N, root-mean-square fluctuations δn 0 of the condensate population, and transition temperature T c . We discuss the particle-number dependence of T c through proposing three T c definitions, which are compared with ones derived in the grand canonical ensemble.

Based on the classification scheme of phase transitions, we study the phase transitions for an ideal Bose gas with a finite number N of particles trapped in a d-dimensional quartic potential. We find that the presence and nature of phase transition depend on the dimensionality of the quartic potential. Proposing three different definitions of transition temperature, we discuss either N or d dependence of transition temperature for the ideal Bose condensate in the d-dimensional quartic potential.

Based on the classification scheme of phase transitions, we study the phase transitions for an ideal Bose gas with a finite number of particles confined in a three-dimensional quartic trap. We show that the phase transition of an ideal Bose gas in the three-dimensional quartic trap is of third order for finite particle numbers, quite different from the fact that the phase transition is of first order in the thermodynamic limit. We discuss the effects of finite particle numbers on the nature of the phase transitions, and determine the dependence of transition temperature on particle number.

A cycle model of an irreversible heat engine working with harmonic systems is established in this paper. Based on the equation of motion of an operator in the Heisenberg picture and semi-group approach, the first law of thermodynamics for a harmonic system and the time evolution of the system are obtained. The general expressions for several important parameters, such as the work, efficiency, power output, and rate of entropy production are derived. By means of numerical analysis, the optimally operating regions and the optimal values of performance parameters of the cycle are determined under the condition of maximum power output. At last, some special cases, such as high temperature limit and frictionless case, are discussed in brief.