Heat engines are thermodynamic physical systems that convert heat energy into mechanical work by exploiting a temperature difference between a high-temperature heat source and a low-temperature heat sink. They operate cyclically, undergoing a sequence of thermodynamic processes (e.g., isothermal, adiabatic, isobaric, or isochoric) that return the working substance to its initial state after each cycle. Their performance is characterized by thermal efficiency, defined as the ratio of net work output to heat input, and fundamentally limited by the Carnot efficiency, which depends solely on the reservoir temperatures and imposes an upper bound dictated by the second law of thermodynamics.
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