Exactly solvable two-terminal heat engine with asymmetric Onsager coefficients: Origin of the power-efficiency bound

An engine producing a finite power at the ideal (Carnot) efficiency is a dream engine, which is not prohibited by the thermodynamic second law. Some years ago, a two-terminal heat engine with {\em asymmetric} Onsager coefficients in the linear response regime was suggested by Benenti, Saito, and Casati [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 106}, 230602 (2011)], as a prototypical system to make such a dream come true with non-divergent system parameter values. However, such a system has never been realized in spite of many trials. Here, we introduce an exactly solvable two-terminal Brownian heat engine with the asymmetric Onsager coefficients in the presence of a Lorenz (magnetic) force. Nevertheless, we show that the dream engine regime cannot be accessible even with the asymmetric Onsager coefficients, due to an instability keeping the engine from reaching its steady state. This is consistent with recent trade-off relations between the engine power and efficiency, where the (cyclic) steady-state condition is implicitly presumed. We conclude that the inaccessibility to the dream engine originates from the steady-state constraint on the engine.

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