Few-qubit quantum refrigerator for cooling a multi-qubit system

We propose to use a few-qubit system as a compact quantum refrigerator for cooling an interacting multi-qubit system. We specifically consider a central qubit coupled to N ancilla qubits in a so-called spin-star model to be used as refrigerant by means of short interactions with a many-qubit system to be cooled. We first show that if the interaction between the qubits is of the longitudinal and ferromagnetic Ising model form, the central qubit is colder than the environment. We summarize how preparing the refrigerant qubits using the spin-star model paves the way for the cooling of a many-qubit system by means of a collisional route to thermalization. We discuss a simple refrigeration cycle, considering the operation cost and cooling efficiency, which can be controlled by N and the qubit–qubit interaction strength. Besides, bounds on the achievable temperature are established. Such few-qubit compact quantum refrigerators can be significant to reduce dimensions of quantum technology applications, can be easy to integrate into all-qubit systems, and can increase the speed and power of quantum computing and thermal devices.