Phys.org September 27, 2023
Quantum theory offers genuine non-classical forms of energy, different from heat, which so far have not been exploited in cyclic engines. An international team of researchers (Germany. Japan, Argentina) experimentally realized a quantum many-body engine fueled by the energy difference between fermionic and bosonic ensembles of ultracold particles that follows from the Pauli exclusion principle. They employed a harmonically trapped superfluid gas of 6Li atoms close to a magnetic Feshbach resonance that allowed them to effectively change the quantum statistics from Bose–Einstein to Fermi–Dirac, by tuning the gas between a Bose–Einstein condensate of bosonic molecules and a unitary Fermi gas (and back) through a magnetic field. The quantum nature of such a Pauli engine was revealed by contrasting it with an engine in the classical thermal regime and with a purely interaction-driven device. They obtained a work output of several 106 vibrational quanta per cycle with an efficiency of up to 25%. According to the researchers their work established quantum statistics as a useful thermodynamic resource for work production… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Principles of the quantum Pauli engine. Credit: Nature volume 621, pages723–727 (2023)Â