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Related papers: The work value of information

200 papers

Information theory provides a mathematical foundation to measure uncertainty in belief. Belief is represented by a probability distribution that captures our understanding of an outcome's plausibility. Information measures based on…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-01-17 Jed A. Duersch , Thomas A. Catanach

The common saying, that information is power, takes a rigorous form in stochastic thermodynamics, where a quantitative equivalence between the two helps explain the paradox of Maxwell's demon in its ability to reduce entropy. In the present…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-03-09 Amirhossein Taghvaei , Olga Movilla Miangolarra , Rui Fu , Yongxin Chen , Tryphon T. Georgiou

Irreversible information processing cannot be carried out without some inevitable thermodynamical work cost. This fundamental restriction, known as Landauer's principle, is increasingly relevant today, as the energy dissipation of computing…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-07-08 Philippe Faist , Frédéric Dupuis , Jonathan Oppenheim , Renato Renner

We develop information theory for the temporal behavior of memoryful agents moving through complex -- structured, stochastic -- environments. We introduce and explore information processes -- stochastic processes produced by cognitive…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-08-04 James P. Crutchfield , Alexandra Jurgens

The trade-off between the information gain and the state disturbance is derived for quantum operations on a single qubit prepared in a uniformly distributed pure state. The derivation is valid for a class of measures quantifying the state…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Konrad Banaszek

We revisit the classic thermodynamic problem of maximum work extraction from two arbitrary sized hot and cold reservoirs, modelled as perfect gases. Assuming ignorance about the extent to which the process has advanced, which implies an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-19 Ramandeep S. Johal

Within the framework of microscopic thermodynamics, correlations can play a crucial role for energy extraction. Our work sheds light on this connection by demonstrating that entanglement governs the amount of extractable energy in a…

Energy extraction is a central task in thermodynamics. In quantum physics, ergotropy measures the amount of work extractable under cyclic Hamiltonian control. As its full extraction requires perfect knowledge of the initial state, however,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-05-31 Dominik Šafránek , Dario Rosa , Felix Binder

Predicting future observations plays a central role in machine learning, biology, economics, and many other fields. It lies at the heart of organizational principles such as the variational free energy principle and has even been shown --…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-09 Lukas J. Fiderer , Paul C. Barth , Isaac D. Smith , Hans J. Briegel

We propose and analyze a process that extracts useful work from a single active particle maintained at constant temperature in a harmonic potential by measuring the relative sign of the self-propulsion and the confining force and then…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-03-09 Grzegorz Szamel

Constraints on work extraction are fundamental to our operational understanding of the thermodynamics of both classical and quantum systems. In the quantum setting, finite-time control operations typically generate coherence in the…

In information theory, one major goal is to find useful functions that summarize the amount of information contained in the interaction of several random variables. Specifically, one can ask how the classical Shannon entropy, mutual…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-14 Leon Lang , Pierre Baudot , Rick Quax , Patrick Forré

The problem of the insensitivity of the macroscopic behavior of any thermodynamical system to partitioning generates a bias between the reproducibility of its macroscopic behavior viewed as the simplest form of causality and its long-term…

General Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Maria K. Koleva

Considering an entropy-based division of energy transferred into heat and work, we develop an alternative theoretical framework for the thermodynamic analysis of two-level systems. When comparing these results with those obtained under the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-04-14 Andrés Vallejo , Alejandro Romanelli , Raúl Donangelo

We provide a simple physical interpretation, in the context of the second law of thermodynamics, to the information inequality (a.k.a. the Gibbs' inequality, which is also equivalent to the log-sum inequality), asserting that the relative…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2009-03-29 Neri Merhav

For time-dependent states generated by an external operation, a generalized free energy may be introduced by the relative entropy with respect to an equilibrium state realized after sufficient relaxation from the time-dependent states.…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-02-13 Naoko Nakagawa , Shin-ichi Sasa

We present a problem relating measurements and information theory in spin foam models. In the three dimensional case of quantum gravity we can compute probabilities of spin network graphs and study the behaviour of the Shannon entropy…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2015-06-05 J. Manuel Garcia-Islas

The thermodynamic uncertainty relation expresses a universal trade-off between precision and entropy production, which applies in its original formulation to current observables in steady-state systems. We generalize this relation to…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-12-06 Timur Koyuk , Udo Seifert , Patrick Pietzonka

Information theory has provided foundations for the theories of several application areas critical for modern society, including communications, computer storage, and AI. A key aspect of Shannon's 1948 theory is a sharp lower bound on the…

Quantum mechanics and information theory are among the most important scientific discoveries of the last century. Although these two areas initially developed separately it has emerged that they are in fact intimately related. In this…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-07 V. Vedral