Speeding up quantum heat engines by the Mpemba effect

The Mpemba effect is a counterintuitive relaxation phenomenon that a system which begins hot can cool down faster than the identical system which is initially cold. Here, we investigate heat and work in a quantum open system with being alternatively driven by hot-cold heat reservoirs, which operates as an Otto cycle in finite time, either with or without the Mpemba effect. Based on the quantum master equation, the time duration of the cooling relaxation process is determined by exploring the distance function which can be used to observe the appearance of the Mpemba effect. We then numerically evaluate and compare the average and variance of the power of two scenarios with and without the Mpemba effect. We demonstrate that, given the efficiency, the Markovian Mpemba effect leads to improved performance by significantly increasing the power without sacrificing the stability.