Quantum spin-heat engine with trapped ions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Carvalho, André R. R., McClelland, Liam J., Streed, Erik W., Vaccaro, Joan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Carvalho, André R. R.
McClelland, Liam J.
Streed, Erik W.
Vaccaro, Joan
author_facet Carvalho, André R. R.
McClelland, Liam J.
Streed, Erik W.
Vaccaro, Joan
contents We propose an ion-trap implementation of the Vaccaro, Barnett and Wright et al. spin-heat engine (SHE); a hypothetical engine that operates between energy and spin thermal reservoirs rather than two energy reservoirs. The SHE operates in two steps: first, in the work extraction stage, heat from a thermal energy reservoir is converted into optical work via a two photon Raman transition resonant with close-to energy degenerate spin states; second, the internal spin states are brought back to their initial state via non-energetic information erasure using a spin reservoir. The latter incurs no energy cost, but rather the reset occurs at the cost of angular momentum from a spin bath that acts as the thermal spin reservoir. The SHE represents an important first step toward demonstrating heat engines that operate beyond the conventional paradigm of requiring two thermal reservoirs, paving the way to harness quantum coherence in arbitrary conserved quantities via similar machines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_03057
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum spin-heat engine with trapped ions
Carvalho, André R. R.
McClelland, Liam J.
Streed, Erik W.
Vaccaro, Joan
Quantum Physics
81V99
We propose an ion-trap implementation of the Vaccaro, Barnett and Wright et al. spin-heat engine (SHE); a hypothetical engine that operates between energy and spin thermal reservoirs rather than two energy reservoirs. The SHE operates in two steps: first, in the work extraction stage, heat from a thermal energy reservoir is converted into optical work via a two photon Raman transition resonant with close-to energy degenerate spin states; second, the internal spin states are brought back to their initial state via non-energetic information erasure using a spin reservoir. The latter incurs no energy cost, but rather the reset occurs at the cost of angular momentum from a spin bath that acts as the thermal spin reservoir. The SHE represents an important first step toward demonstrating heat engines that operate beyond the conventional paradigm of requiring two thermal reservoirs, paving the way to harness quantum coherence in arbitrary conserved quantities via similar machines.
title Quantum spin-heat engine with trapped ions
topic Quantum Physics
81V99
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.03057