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Updated: Jun 12, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Heat capacity of periodically driven two-level systems
Elena Rufeil Fiori1,2, Christian Maes1
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, <a href="https://ror.org/05f950310">KU Leuven</a> 3000, Belgium.
Abstract:
We define the heat capacity for steady periodically driven systems and as an example we compute it for dissipative two-level systems where the energy gap is time-modulated. There, as a function of ambient temperature, the Schottky peak remains the dominant feature. Yet, in contrast with equilibrium, the quasistatic thermal response of a nonequilibrium system also reveals kinetic information present in the transition rates; e.g., the heat capacity depends on the time-symmetric reactivities and changes by the presence of a kinetic barrier. It still vanishes though at absolute zero, in accord with an extended Nernst heat postulate, but at a different rate from the equilibrium case. More generally, we discuss the dependence on driving frequency and amplitude.
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