Geometrical Quantum Chemical Engine

We propose a geometrical engine undergoing an adiabatic (Thouless) pumping process for a small system connected to external isothermal reservoirs with the control of electrochemical potentials of the reservoirs and one parameter in the system Hamiltonian. Thanks to the geometrical nature of this process, the entropy production is characterized by the geometric metric tensor which is connected to the Fisher information and the Hessian of the density matrix in a nonequilibrium steady state. The existence of an inequality between the thermodynamic length and entropy production is established. We also establish that the work done on this system is characterized by a vector potential and is equivalent to the thermodynamic flux. To characterize the engine, we the introduce effective efficiency as the relation between the work and entropy production. Through the theoretical analysis of the quantum master equation for the Anderson model of a quantum dot within the wide-band approximation, we illustrate the explicit values of the work, thermodynamic length, and effective efficiency of the engine as functions of the phase difference of the externally controlled electrochemical potentials.
Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures