  Recent years have enjoyed an overwhelming interest in quantum thermodynamics,
a field of research aimed at understanding thermodynamic tasks performed in the
quantum regime. Further progress, however, seems to be obstructed by the lack
of experimental implementations of thermal machines in which quantum effects
play a decisive role. In this work, we introduce a blueprint of quantum field
machines, which - once experimentally realized - would fill this gap. Even
though the concept of the QFM presented here is very general and can be
implemented in any many body quantum system that can be described by a quantum
field theory. We provide here a detailed proposal how to realize a quantum
machine in one-dimensional ultra-cold atomic gases, which consists of a set of
modular operations giving rise to a piston. These can then be coupled
sequentially to thermal baths, with the innovation that a quantum field takes
up the role of the working fluid. In particular, we propose models for
compression on the system to use it as a piston, and coupling to a bath that
gives rise to a valve controlling heat flow. These models are derived within
Bogoliubov theory, which allows us to study the operational primitives
numerically in an efficient way. By composing the numerically modelled
operational primitives we design complete quantum thermodynamic cycles that are
shown to enable cooling and hence giving rise to a quantum field refrigerator.
The active cooling achieved in this way can operate in regimes where existing
cooling methods become ineffective. We describe the consequences of operating
the machine at the quantum level and give an outlook of how this work serves as
a road map to explore open questions in quantum information, quantum
thermodynamic and the study of non-Markovian quantum dynamics.
