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Related papers: Information is not a thermodynamic resource

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Szilard's now-famous single-molecule engine was only the first of three constructions he introduced in 1929 to resolve several paradoxes arising from Maxwell's demon. We analyze Szilard's remaining two demon models. We show that the second…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2020-03-24 Kyle J. Ray , James P. Crutchfield

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…

In Szilard's engine, measurement and feedback allows to extract work from an equilibrium environment, a process otherwise forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics. Recent theoretical developments have established fluctuation theorems and…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2025-11-14 David Barker , Sebastian Lehmann , Kimberly A. Dick , Peter Samuelsson , Ville Maisi , Patrick P. Potts

We develop an axiomatic reconstruction of thermodynamics based entirely on two primitive components: a description of what aspects of a system are observed and a reference measure that encodes the underlying descriptive convention. These…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2026-01-21 Tatsuaki Tsuruyama

In many real-world situations, there are constraints on the ways in which a physical system can be manipulated. We investigate the entropy production (EP) and extractable work involved in bringing a system from some initial distribution $p$…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-11-22 Artemy Kolchinsky , David H. Wolpert

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-30 Sosuke Ito , Takahiro Sagawa

We investigate thermodynamics of feedback processes driven by measurement. Regarding system and memory device as a composite system, mutual information as a measure of correlation between the two constituents contributes to the entropy of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-04-12 Chulan Kwon

We study the thermodynamic properties induced by non-reciprocal interactions between stochastic degrees of freedom in time- and space-continuous systems. We show that, under fairly general conditions, non-reciprocal coupling alone implies a…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-04-29 Sarah A. M. Loos , Sabine H. L. Klapp

Isothermal information engines operate by extracting net work from a single heat bath through measurement and feedback control. In this work, we analyze a realistic active Szilard engine operating on a single active particle by means of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-05-15 Luca Cocconi , Paolo Malgaretti , Holger Stark

We propose a new thermodynamic equality and several inequalities concerning the relationship between work and information for an isothermal process with Maxwell's demon. Our approach is based on the formulation a la Jarzynski of the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 Takahiro Sagawa , Masahito Ueda

Thermodynamics is based on the notions of energy and entropy. While energy is the elementary quantity governing physical dynamics, entropy is the fundamental concept in information theory. In this work, starting from first principles, we…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-10-25 Bernhard Altaner

Thermodynamics and information have intricate inter-relations. The justification of the fact that information is physical, is done by inter-linking information and thermodynamics - through Landauer's principle. This modern approach towards…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-05-29 Manabendra Nath Bera , Andreas Winter , Maciej Lewenstein

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between entropy and information in the context of the mixing process of two identical ideal gases. We will argue that entropy has a special information-based feature that is enfolded in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-26 Afshin Shafiee , Majid Karimi

We build a double quantum-dot system with Coulomb coupling and aim at studying the connections among the entropy production, free energy, and information flow. By utilizing the concepts in stochastic thermodynamics and graph theory…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-09-01 Zhiyuan Lin , Tong Fu , Juying Xiao , Shanhe Su , Jincan Chen , Yanchao Zhang

We present a critical examination of the difficulties with the quantum versions of a lifted weight that are widely used as work storage systems in quantum thermodynamics. To overcome those difficulties, we turn to the strong connections…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-06-05 Shang-Yung Wang

In this study, we present a reformulation of classical equilibrium thermodynamics by replacing the obscure and ambiguous concept of entropy with the clear and intuitive concept of information stored in a thermodynamic system. Specifically,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-01-15 Faical Barzi , Kaoutar Fethi

A diffusive process that is reset to its origin at random times, so-called stochastic resetting (SR), is an ubiquitous expedient in many natural systems . Yet, beyond its ability to improve the efficiency of target searching, SR is a true…

The gedanken experiment of Maxwell's demon has led to the studies concerning the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The demon measures fluctuations of a system's observable and converts the information gain into work…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-05-09 Y. Masuyama , K. Funo , Y. Murashita , A. Noguchi , S. Kono , Y. Tabuchi , R. Yamazaki , M. Ueda , Y. Nakamura

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2012-02-07 Takahiro Sagawa , Masahito Ueda

The probabilistic information flow and natural computational capability of a system with two magnetic skyrmions at room temperature have been experimentally evaluated. Based on this evaluation, an all-solid-state built-in Maxwell's demon…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2025-06-17 Yoshishige Suzuki , Hiroki Mori , Soma Miki , Kota Emoto , Ryo Ishikawa , Eiiti Tamura , Hikaru Nomura , Minori Goto