Paper detail

Adaptive heat engine

A major limitations for many heat engines is that their functioning demands on-line control, and/or an external fitting between environmental parameters (e.g. temperatures of thermal baths) and internal parameters of the engine. We study a model for an adaptive heat engine, where---due to feedback from the functional part---the engine's structure adapts to given thermal baths. Hence no on-line control and no external fitting are needed. The engine can employ unknown resources, it can also adapt to results of its own functioning that makes the bath temperatures closer. We determine thermodynamic costs of adaptation and relate them to the prior information available about the environment. We also discuss informational constraints on the structure-function interaction that are necessary for adaptation.