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  • Open Access

Nonlinear refrigerator with a finite-sized cold heat bath

I. Iyyappan1,2,3,*,†, Yuki Izumida4,*,‡, and Sibasish Ghosh1,2,§

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: iyyap.si@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: izumida@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
  • §Contact author: sibasish@imsc.res.in
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APS Open Sci. 1, 000153 – Published 24 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nvld-9gzw

Abstract

We study the refrigerator working between a finite-sized cold heat bath and an infinite-sized hot heat bath (environment) in the nonlinear response regime. We assume that the initial temperature Ti of the finite-sized cold heat bath satisfies Ti≤Th, where Th is the temperature of the hot heat bath. By consuming the input power, the refrigerator transfers the heat from a finite-sized cold heat bath to the hot heat bath. Hence, the temperature of the finite-sized cold heat bath decreases until it reaches the desired low temperature Tf. By minimizing the input work for the heat transport process, we derive the optimal path for temperature change. We calculate the coefficient of performance as a function of average input power. We also obtain the bounds for the coefficient of performance by applying the asymmetric dissipation limits. For the parameter values considered in this study, we observe that the relation between the coefficient of performance and the average input power strongly depends on the nature of the finite-sized heat cold bath.

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Outline

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APS Open Sci. 1, 000153– Published 24 September, 2026
Vol. 1
  • Received 29 August 2025
  • Revised 9 September 2026
  • Accepted 11 September 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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