📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

We investigate a Brownian heat engine wherein a particle moves through a periodic ratchet potential under an exponentially decreasing temperature profile, a spatial configuration that closely resembles experimentally realizable conditions such as laser-induced thermal gradients and thermoplasmonic heating. This model yields exact analytical expressions for the particle current, thermodynamic efficiency, entropy production, and coefficient of performance (COP), and uniquely recovers the Curzon Ahlborn efficiency and the corresponding endoreversible COP exactly in the quasistatic limit. These findings provide a rare and rigorous realization of endoreversible thermodynamics at the mesoscopic scale because they are derived directly from microscopic stochastic dynamics without recourse to phenomenological assumptions, asymptotic approximations or coarse-graining techniques. Although the derived efficiency and COP are exact, they remain strictly below the Carnot limit, reflecting the inherent irreversibility embedded within the endoreversible framework. Furthermore, we show that in comparison to linear and piecewise-constant temperature profile cases, the exponential temperature profile leads to significantly higher particle velocities, higher entropy production, but lower thermodynamic efficiency, which underscores the fundamental trade-off between transport speed and energy cost.