Non-geometric pumping effects on the performance of interacting quantum-dot heat engines

Periodically driven quantum dots can act as counterparts of cyclic thermal machines at the nanoscale. In the slow-driving regime of geometric pumping, such machines have been shown to operate in analogy to a Carnot cycle. For larger driving frequencies, which are required in order to increase the cooling power, the efficiency of the operation decreases. Up to which frequency a close-to-optimal performance is still possible depends on the magnitude and sign of on-site electron-electron interaction. Extending our previous detailed study on cyclic quantum-dot refrigerators [Phys. Rev. B 106, 035405 (2022)], we here find that the optimal cooling power remains constant up to weak interaction strength compared to the cold-bath temperature. By contrast, the work cost depends on the interaction via the dot's charge relaxation rate, as the latter sets the typical driving frequency for the onset of non-geometric pumping contributions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the FQMT'22 conferenc

An autonomous quantum machine to measure the thermodynamic arrow of time

According to the Second Law of thermodynamics, the evolution of physical systems has a preferred direction, that is characterized by some positive entropy production. Here we propose a direct way to measure the stochastic entropy produced while driving a quantum open system out of thermal equilibrium. The driving work is provided by a quantum battery, the system and the battery forming an autonomous machine. We show that the battery's energy fluctuations equal work fluctuations and check Jarzynski's equality. Since these energy fluctuations are measurable, the battery behaves as an embedded quantum work meter and the machine verifies a generalized fluctuation theorem involving the information encoded in the battery. Our proposal can be implemented with state-of-the-art opto-mechanical systems. It paves the way towards the experimental demonstration of fluctuation theorems in quantum open systems.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Geometric energy transport and refrigeration with driven quantum dots

We study geometric energy transport in a slowly driven single-level quantum dot weakly coupled to electronic contacts and with strong on-site interaction, which can be either repulsive or attractive. Exploiting a recently discovered fermionic duality for the evolution operator of the master equation, we provide compact and insightful analytic expressions of energy pumping curvatures for any pair of driving parameters. This enables us to systematically identify and explain the pumping mechanisms for different driving schemes, thereby also comparing energy and charge pumping. We determine the concrete impact of many-body interactions and show how particle-hole symmetry and fermionic duality manifest, both individually and in combination, as system-parameter symmetries of the energy pumping curvatures. Building on this transport analysis, we study the driven dot acting as a heat pump or refrigerator, where we find that the sign of the on-site interaction plays a crucial role in the performance of these thermal machines

Charge, spin, and heat shot noises in the absence of average currents: Conditions on bounds at zero and finite frequencies

Nonequilibrium situations where selected currents are suppressed are of interest in fields like thermoelectrics and spintronics, raising the question of how the related noises behave. We study such zero-current charge, spin, and heat noises in a two-terminal mesoscopic conductor. In the presence of voltage, spin and temperature biases, the nonequilibrium (shot) noises of charge, spin, and heat can be arbitrarily large, even if their average currents vanish. However, as soon as a temperature bias is present, additional equilibrium (thermal-like) noise necessarily occurs. We show that this equilibrium noise sets an upper bound on the zero-current charge and spin shot noises, even if additional voltage or spin biases are present. We demonstrate that these bounds can be overcome for heat transport by breaking the spin and electron-hole symmetries, respectively. By contrast, we show that the bound on the charge noise for strictly two-terminal conductors even extends into the finite-frequency regime.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Charge, spin, and heat shot noises in the absence of average currents: Conditions on bounds at zero and finite frequencies

Nonequilibrium situations where selected currents are suppressed are of interest in fields like thermoelectrics and spintronics, raising the question of how the related noises behave. We study such zero-current charge, spin, and heat noises in a two-terminal mesoscopic conductor. In the presence of voltage, spin, and temperature biases, the nonequilibrium (shot) noises of charge, spin, and heat can be arbitrarily large, even if their average currents vanish. However, as soon as a temperature bias is present, additional equilibrium (thermal-like) noise necessarily occurs. We show that this equilibrium noise sets an upper bound on the zero-current charge and spin shot noises, even if additional voltage or spin biases are present. We demonstrate that these bounds can be overcome for heat transport by breaking the spin and electron-hole symmetries, respectively. By contrast, we show that the bound on the charge noise for strictly two-terminal conductors even extends into the finite-frequency regime

Integrated microcavity optomechanics with a suspended photonic crystal mirror above a distributed Bragg reflector

Increasing the interaction between light and mechanical resonators is an ongoing endeavor in the field of cavity optomechanics. Optical microcavities allow for boosting the interaction strength through their strong spatial confinement of the optical field. In this work, we follow this approach by realizing a sub-wavelength-long, free-space optomechanical microcavity on-chip fabricated from an (Al,Ga)As heterostructure. A suspended GaAs photonic crystal mirror is acting as a highly reflective mechanical resonator, which together with a distributed Bragg reflector forms an optomechanical microcavity. We demonstrate precise control over the microcavity resonance by change of the photonic crystal parameters. The interplay between the microcavity mode and a guided resonance of the photonic crystal modifies the cavity response and results in a stronger dynamical backaction on the mechanical resonator compared to conventional optomechanical dynamics.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures + Supplementary Material with 10 pages, 12 figures, 2 table

Optomechanical cooling with coherent and squeezed light: the thermodynamic cost of opening the heat valve

Ground-state cooling of mechanical motion by coupling to a driven optical cavity has been demonstrated in various optomechanical systems. In our work, we provide a so far missing thermodynamic performance analysis of optomechanical sideband cooling in terms of a heat valve. As performance quantifiers, we examine not only the lowest reachable effective temperature (phonon number) but also the evacuated-heat flow as an equivalent to the cooling power of a standard refrigerator, as well as appropriate thermodynamic efficiencies, which all can be experimentally inferred from measurements of the cavity output light field. Importantly, in addition to the standard optomechanical setup fed by coherent light, we investigate two recent alternative setups for achieving ground-state cooling: replacing the coherent laser drive by squeezed light or using a cavity with a frequency-dependent (Fano) mirror. We study the dynamics of these setups within and beyond the weak-coupling limit and give concrete examples based on parameters of existing experimental systems. By applying our thermodynamic framework, we gain detailed insights into these three different optomechanical cooling setups, allowing a comprehensive understanding of the thermodynamic mechanisms at play.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables Small revision of the main text, corrected typos in the appendices, added study of the stability of the systems and comparison with absorption refrigerators in appendi

Ultrastrong coupling between electron tunneling and mechanical motion

The ultrastrong coupling of single-electron tunneling and nanomechanical motion opens exciting opportunities to explore fundamental questions and develop new platforms for quantum technologies. We have measured and modelled this electromechanical coupling in a fully-suspended carbon nanotube device and report a ratio of $g_m/\omega_m = 1.3$, where $g_m/2\pi = 420\pm20$~MHz is the coupling strength and $\omega_m/2\pi=324$~MHz is the mechanical resonance frequency. This is well within the ultrastrong coupling regime and the highest among current electromechanical platforms. Even higher ratios could be achieved with improvement on device design

Stability of long-sustained oscillations induced by electron tunneling

Self-oscillations are the result of an efficient mechanism generating periodic motion from a constant power source. In quantum devices, these oscillations may arise due to the interaction between single electron dynamics and mechanical motion. Due to the complexity of this mechanism, these self-oscillations may irrupt, vanish, or exhibit a bistable behavior causing hysteresis cycles. We observe these hysteresis cycles and characterize the stability of different regimes in single and double quantum dot configurations. In particular cases, we find these oscillations stable for over 20 seconds, many orders of magnitude above electronic and mechanical characteristic timescales, revealing the robustness of the mechanism at play. The experimental results are reproduced by our theoretical model that provides a complete understanding of bistability in nanoelectromechanical devices.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, includes the complete paper and the Supplemental Materia

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome associated with COVID-19: An Emulated Target Trial Analysis.

RATIONALE: Whether COVID patients may benefit from extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) compared with conventional invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) remains unknown. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the effect of ECMO on 90-Day mortality vs IMV only Methods: Among 4,244 critically ill adult patients with COVID-19 included in a multicenter cohort study, we emulated a target trial comparing the treatment strategies of initiating ECMO vs. no ECMO within 7 days of IMV in patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (PaO2/FiO2 <80 or PaCO2 ≥60 mmHg). We controlled for confounding using a multivariable Cox model based on predefined variables. MAIN RESULTS: 1,235 patients met the full eligibility criteria for the emulated trial, among whom 164 patients initiated ECMO. The ECMO strategy had a higher survival probability at Day-7 from the onset of eligibility criteria (87% vs 83%, risk difference: 4%, 95% CI 0;9%) which decreased during follow-up (survival at Day-90: 63% vs 65%, risk difference: -2%, 95% CI -10;5%). However, ECMO was associated with higher survival when performed in high-volume ECMO centers or in regions where a specific ECMO network organization was set up to handle high demand, and when initiated within the first 4 days of MV and in profoundly hypoxemic patients. CONCLUSIONS: In an emulated trial based on a nationwide COVID-19 cohort, we found differential survival over time of an ECMO compared with a no-ECMO strategy. However, ECMO was consistently associated with better outcomes when performed in high-volume centers and in regions with ECMO capacities specifically organized to handle high demand. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)