title: Extracting work from a single heat bath via vanishing quantum coherence.
abstract: We present here a quantum Carnot engine in which the atoms in the heat bath are given a small bit of quantum coherence. The induced quantum coherence becomes vanishingly small in the high-temperature limit at which we operate and the heat bath is essentially thermal. However, the phase phi, associated with the atomic coherence, provides a new control parameter that can be varied to increase the temperature of the radiation field and to extract work from a single heat bath. The deep physics behind the second law of thermodynamics is not violated; nevertheless, the quantum Carnot engine has certain features that are not possible in a classical engine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Institute for Quantum Studies, Texas A&M University, TX 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Marlan O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Scully
authors.forename: M Suhail
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Zubairy
authors.forename: Girish S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Walther