Work costs and operating regimes for different manners of system-reservoir interactions via collision model

Abstract

Abstract In this work, we study effects of different types of system-reservoir interactions on work costs and operating regimes of thermal machines by considering a quantum system consisting of two subsystems embedded in both independent and common reservoirs. The model allows us to make a contrast between three configurations of system-reservoir interactions, namely, the three-body one, the two-body one with and without intrasystem interaction between two subsystems. After establishing general formulations of thermodynamics quantities, we derive specific forms of heat and work with respect to these three configurations based on a model with two coupled qubits. It is shown that both the amount and sign of work are closely related to ways of system-reservoir interactions, by which six types of operating regimes of machines are constructed for a given setting. We find that different modes of system-reservoir interactions lead to different numbers of operating regimes of machines on the one hand, and on the other hand machines of the same kinds can appear in different scenarios of system-reservoir interactions, but which one is superior over others relies on intervals of parameters. A possible implementation of the setup based on the platform of circuit quantum electrodynamics is discussed briefly. We then generalize the bipartite model to multipartite case and derive the corresponding formulations of thermodynamics quantities. Our results indicate that interacting manners of system-reservoir play an important role in modifying thermodynamics process and can thus be utilized in designing quantum thermal machines with requisite functions.