The classical mechanics of autonomous microscopic engines

Even microscopic engines have hitherto been defined to require macroscopic elements such as heat reservoirs, but here we observe that what makes engines useful is energy transfer across a large ratio of dynamical time scales (“downconversion”), and that small, closed dynamical systems which could perform steady downconversion (“Hamiltonian daemons”) would fulfill the practical requirements of autonomous microscopic engines. We show that such daemons are possible, and obey mechanical constraints comparable to, but different from, the laws of thermodynamics.