Related papers: The Physics of Maxwell's demon and information
The birth, life, and death of Maxwell's demon provoked a profound discussion about the interplay between thermodynamics, computation, and information. Even after its exorcism, the demon continues to inspire a multidisciplinary field. This…
The second law of thermodynamics is probabilistic in nature. Its formulation requires that the state of a system be described by a probability distribution. A natural question, thereby, arises as to whether a prior knowledge about the state…
As early as 1867, two years after the introduction of the concept of entropy by Clausius, Maxwell showed that the limitations imposed by the second law of thermodynamics depend on the information that one possesses about the state of a…
A Maxwell's demon is a device that gets information and trades it in for thermodynamic advantage, in apparent (but not actual) contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. Quantum-mechanical versions of Maxwell's demon exhibit…
In his famous letter in 1870, Maxwell describes how Joule's law can be violated "only by the intelligent action of a mere guiding agent", later coined as Maxwell's demon by Lord Kelvin. In this letter we study thermodynamics of information…
We review theory of information thermodynamics which incorporates effects of measurement and feedback into nonequilibrium thermodynamics of a small system, and discuss how the second law of thermodynamics should be extended for such…
In apparent contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon is able to cyclically extract work from a system in contact with a thermal bath exploiting the information about its microstate. The resolution of this paradox…
Signal transduction in living cells is vital to maintain life itself, where information transfer in noisy environment plays a significant role. In a rather different context, the recent intensive researches of "Maxwell's demon" - a feedback…
The information-theoretic arguments presented in a recent publication on "Quantum discord and Maxwell's demons" are discussed, and found not to address the problem specified by Maxwell. Two interrelated and definitive exorcisms of the…
It is nearly 150 years since Maxwell challenged the validity of the second law of thermodynamics by imagining a tiny creature who could sort the molecules of a gas in such a way that would decrease entropy without exerting any work. The…
In the past decade several theoretical Maxwell's demon models have been proposed exhibiting effects such as refrigerating, doing work at the cost of information, and some experiments have been done to realise these effects. Here we propose…
Maxwell's demon explores the role of information in physical processes. Employing information about microscopic degrees of freedom, this "intelligent observer" is capable of compensating entropy production (or extracting work), apparently…
Resolution of the century-long paradox on Maxwell's demon reveals a deep connection between information theory and thermodynamics. Although initially introduced as a thought experiment, Maxwell's demon can now be implemented in several…
This work provides an overview of key historical developments in the formulation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, focusing on the notorious challenge of ``Maxwell's Demon'', a hypothetical creature who could presumably violate that law.…
Szilard's one-molecule engine is operated by a Maxwell's demon attempting to convert heat to work. It is argued here that when using the demon to relate information to work (Landauer's principle), the demon's goal must be regarded as an…
A demonic being, introduced by Maxwell, to miraculously create thermal non-equilibrium and violate the Second law of thermodynamics, has been among the most intriguing and elusive wishful concepts for over 150 years. Maxwell and his…
Converting information into work has during the last decade gained renewed interest as it gives insight into the relation between information theory and thermodynamics. Here we theoretically investigate an implementation of Maxwell's demon…
In this highly speculative Letter it is argued that, under certain physical conditions, Maxwell's demon might be capable of breaking the second law of thermodynamics, thereby allowing a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, by…
We describe a minimal model of a quantum Maxwell demon obeying Hamiltonian dynamics. The model is solved exactly, and we analyze its steady-state behavior. We find that writing information to a quantum memory induces a probability current…
The second law of thermodynamics dictates the fundamental limits to the amount of energy and information that can be exchanged between physical systems. In this work, we extend a thermodynamic formalism describing this flow of energy and…