Related papers: Second Thoughts on the Second Law
In the present work we show that the second law of thermodynamics does not generally hold if the matter and gravitational fields are nonminimally coupled. We demonstrate this result by explicitly computing the evolution of the entropy of…
For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…
In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…
Landauer's principle makes a strong connection between information theory and thermodynamics by stating that erasing a one-bit memory at temperature $T_0$ requires an average energy larger than $W_{LB}=k_BT_0 \ln2$, with $k_B$ Boltzmann's…
Using a double-well potential as a physical memory, we study with experiments and numerical simulations the energy exchanges during erasure processes, and model quantitatively the cost of fast operation. Within the stochastic thermodynamics…
I argue that both digital and analog information are important in the foundations of quantum physics. If it is possible for information present in one system to become present in others without being erased in the original system I will say…
The possibility of stating the second law of thermodynamics in terms of the increasing behaviour of a physical property establishes a connection between that branch of physics and the theory of algebraic inequalities. We use this connection…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
We define thermodynamic configurations and identify two primitives of discrete quantum processes between configurations for which heat and work can be defined in a natural way. This allows us to uncover a general second law for any discrete…
Energy consumption of computing has found increasing prominence but the area still suffers from the lack of a consolidated formal theory. In this paper, a theory for the energy consumption of computing is structured as an axiomatic system.…
The clean world of digital information is based on noisy physical devices. Landauer's principle provides a deep connection between information processing and the underlying thermodynamics by setting a lower limit on the energy consumption…
The aim of this article is to analyze the relation between the second law of thermodynamics and the so-called arrow of time. For this purpose, a number of different aspects in this arrow of time are distinguished, in particular those of…
We show that information in quantum memory can be erased and recovered perfectly if it is necessary. That the final states of environment are completely determined by the initial states of the system allows that an easure operation can be…
The amount of heat generated by computers is rapidly becoming one of the main problems for developing new generations of information technology. The thermodynamics of computation sets the ultimate physical bounds on heat generation. A lower…
The second law of thermodynamics in nonextensive statistical mechanics is discussed in the quantum regime. Making use of the convexity property of the generalized relative entropy associated with the Tsallis entropy indexed by q, Clausius'…
Feedback control mechanisms are ubiquitous in science and technology, and play an essential role in regulating physical, biological and engineering systems. The standard second law of thermodynamics does not hold in the presence of…
Maxwell's Demon, 'a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course', has been the centre of much debate about its abilities to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Landauer's hypothesis, that the…
Even after over 150 years of discussion, the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics continues to be a source of confusion and controversy in physics. This confusion has been accentuated by recent challenges to the second law and…
Master equation could be applied to model various kinds of biochemical systems. A general theory for its time-dependent nonequilibrium thermodynamics is rigorously derived. We not only introduce a concept of general internal energy, but…
We study the modification of the second law of thermodynamics for a quantum system interacting with a reservoir regarding quantum coherence. The whole system is isolated so that neither energy nor information is lost. It is discovered that…