We recently argued that a self-propelled particle is formally equivalent to a system consisting of two subsystems coupled by a nonreciprocal interaction [Phys. Rev. E 100, 050603(R) (2019)]. Here, we show that this nonreciprocal coupling allows us to extract useful work from a single self-propelled particle maintained at constant temperature, by using an aligning interaction to control correlations between the particle's position and self-propulsion.

• Received 5 August 2020
• Accepted 21 September 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.042605