Finite-Bandwidth Protection of a Three-Level Quantum Heat Engine Against Parasitic Heat Leaks
Abstract
Finite-bandwidth reservoir engineering can suppress unwanted transitions in a quantum thermal machine, but a physical filter also introduces a finite response time. We study this competition in a continuous three-level heat engine whose hot environment couples parasitically to the cold transition. The corresponding three-state rate network is solved exactly, showing that the parasitic transition produces a hot-to-cold thermodynamic short circuit and yielding a closed threshold for the loss of positive-power operation. We then retain a damped auxiliary mode explicitly as a physical spectral filter. Its Lorentzian response suppresses the detuned parasitic transition, whereas excessive narrowing limits the useful energy throughput. Independent local-GKSL and nonsecular Bloch--Redfield calculations both recover the no-leak Markovian engine in the weak-coupling limit and predict a finite maximum-power bandwidth, although its precise location is model dependent. A frequency-resolved Lorentzian-rate reduction, by contrast, has no interior optimum. The resulting design principle is that spectral selectivity can protect the useful thermodynamic cycle, but a real filter cannot be narrowed without a dynamical throughput cost.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{prataviera2026finitebandwidth,
title = {{Finite-Bandwidth Protection of a Three-Level Quantum Heat Engine Against Parasitic Heat Leaks}},
author = {Gilberto Aparecido Prataviera and Marcos César de Oliveira},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.40038},
eprint = {2609.40038},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.40038},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Finite-Bandwidth Protection of a Three-Level Quantum Heat Engine Against Parasitic Heat Leaks
AU - Gilberto Aparecido Prataviera
AU - Marcos César de Oliveira
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.40038
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.40038
AB - Finite-bandwidth reservoir engineering can suppress unwanted transitions in a quantum thermal machine, but a physical filter also introduces a finite response time. We study this competition in a continuous three-level heat engine whose hot environment couples parasitically to the cold transition. The corresponding three-state rate network is solved exactly, showing that the parasitic transition produces a hot-to-cold thermodynamic short circuit and yielding a closed threshold for the loss of positive-power operation. We then retain a damped auxiliary mode explicitly as a physical spectral filter. Its Lorentzian response suppresses the detuned parasitic transition, whereas excessive narrowing limits the useful energy throughput. Independent local-GKSL and nonsecular Bloch--Redfield calculations both recover the no-leak Markovian engine in the weak-coupling limit and predict a finite maximum-power bandwidth, although its precise location is model dependent. A frequency-resolved Lorentzian-rate reduction, by contrast, has no interior optimum. The resulting design principle is that spectral selectivity can protect the useful thermodynamic cycle, but a real filter cannot be narrowed without a dynamical throughput cost.
ER -