Integration of the heat pipe with an ejector will result in a compact and high performance system. The concept of the heat pipe/ejector refrigeration cycle is discussed, in this paper. The needed driving capillary forces are firmly established. The basic characteristics of the system, such as entrainment ratio, coefficient of performance, exergy efficiency and thermal efficiency of the system are evaluated. Also, the zero-dimensional constant pressure mixing theory is applied to ejector. In this study, water is used as the working fluid. Whenever the mixed flow is supersonic, a normal shockwave is assumed to occur upstream of diffuser inlet. The simulation results indicate that, the coefficient of performance can reach about 0.30 at T-e = 10 degrees C, T-c = 30 degrees C and T-g = 100 degrees C. Also, the second law efficiency of the heat pipe/ejector refrigeration cycle increases with increasing evaporator temperature and decreasing condenser temperature. It is seen that, the maximum heat pipe cooling capacity obtains for large heat pipe diameters, near the small heat pipe lengths. It has proven that, this refrigeration system can be widely used in many areas, especially in renewable energy utilization such as solar energy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.