Speed-ups to isothermality: Enhanced quantum thermal machines through control of the system-bath coupling

Abstract: Isothermal transformations are minimally dissipative but slow processes, as the system needs to remain close to thermal equilibrium along the protocol. Here, we show that smoothly modifying the system-bath interaction can significantly speed up such transformations. In particular, we construct protocols where the overall dissipation $W_{\rm diss}$ decays with the total time $\tau_{\rm tot}$ of the protocol as $W_{\rm diss} \propto \tau_{\rm tot}^{-2\alpha-1}$, where each value $\alpha > 0$ can be obtained by a suitable modification of the interaction, whereas $\alpha=0$ corresponds to a standard isothermal process where the system-bath interaction remains constant. Considering heat engines based on such speed-ups, we show that the corresponding efficiency at maximum power interpolates between the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency for $\alpha =0$ and the Carnot efficiency for $\alpha \to \infty$. Analogous enhancements are obtained for the coefficient of performance of refrigerators. We confirm our analytical results with two numerical examples where $\alpha = 1/2$, namely the time-dependent Caldeira-Leggett and resonant-level models, with strong system-environment correlations taken fully into account. We highlight the possibility of implementing our proposed speed-ups with ultracold atomic impurities and mesoscopic electronic devices.