Abstract

We studied the efficiency of two different schemes for a magnetically driven quantum heat engine, by considering as the working substance a single nonrelativistic particle trapped in a cylindrical potential well, in the presence of an external magnetic field. The first scheme is a cycle, composed of two adiabatic and two isoenergetic reversible trajectories in configuration space. The trajectories are driven by a quasistatic modulation of the external magnetic- field intensity. The second scheme is a variant of the former, where the isoenergetic trajectories are replaced by isothermal ones, along which the system is in contact with macroscopic thermostats. This second scheme constitutes a quantum analog of the classical Carnot cycle.