Unlocking inaccessible performance of the quantum refrigerator with catalysts

Abstract

Quantum thermal machines offer promising platforms for exploring the fundamental limits of thermodynamics at the microscopic scale. Building on majorization theory, we further extend the catalytic concept to a two-stroke quantum refrigerator via discrete strokes. The working medium consists of two two-level systems and two heat reservoirs at different temperatures and is assisted by an auxiliary system acting as a catalyst. We show that the presence of the catalyst leads to two significant enhancements: it enables the coefficient of performance and the cooling capacity to exceed the Otto bound and allows the refrigerator to operate in frequency and temperature regimes that are inaccessible without a catalyst. These results highlight the potential of catalytic mechanisms to broaden the operational capabilities of quantum thermal devices and to surpass conventional thermodynamic performance limits.