Consider an Atkinson cycle, a current topic of research, which is similar to the Otto cycle with minor modifications. Instead of the piston starting the compression process at its bottom-most position, the intake valves remain open as the piston moves upwards such that the compression process does not take place over the entire piston displacement. This provides a higher expansion ratio (v4/v3) than compression ratio (v1/v2). The higher expansion ratio allows more work to be extracted such that the efficiency is higher than the Otto cycle. The processes associated with the ideal Atkinson cycle are described below. The Atkinson cycle is shown schematically in Figure Q3a and the P-v diagram is show in Figure Q3b. Process 1-2: Isentropic compression: compression begins mid-way through the piston's travel (i.e. v1