Thermal entangled quantum heat engine

Based on a two-qubit Heisenberg XY model, we construct a four-level entangled quantum heat engine (QHE). It is an interesting quantum Otto cycle where the exchange constant is fixed and only the magnetic field is varied during the adiabatic steps. The expressions for several thermodynamic quantities such as the heat transferred, the work and the efficiency are derived. Moreover, the influence of the entanglement on the thermodynamic quantities is investigated numerically. Several interesting features of the variation of the heat transferred, the work and the efficiency with the concurrences of the thermal entanglement of different thermal equilibrium states are obtained. Finally, we discussed the maximum efficiency of the QHE.