Extending the Limited 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. Here, we study a two-stroke quantum refrigerator that extracts heat from a cold reservoir via discrete strokes powered by external work. The working medium consists of two two-level systems (TLSs) and two heat reservoirs at different temperatures and is assisted by an auxiliary system acting as a catalyst. Remarkably, the catalyst remains unchanged after each cycle, ensuring that heat extraction is driven entirely by the work input. We show that the presence of the catalyst leads to two significant enhancements: it enables the coefficient of performance (COP) 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.