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We introduce a family of Maxwellian Demons for which correlations among information bearing degrees of freedom can be calculated exactly and in compact analytical form. This allows one to precisely determine Demon functional thermodynamic…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-03-23 A. B. Boyd , D. Mandal , J. P. Crutchfield

Key to biological success, the requisite variety that confronts an adaptive organism is the set of detectable, accessible, and controllable states in its environment. We analyze its role in the thermodynamic functioning of information…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-04-26 Alexander B. Boyd , Dibyendu Mandal , James P. Crutchfield

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-08-24 Ian J. Ford

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

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…

Information-driven engines that rectify thermal fluctuations are a modern realization of the Maxwell-demon thought experiment. We introduce a simple design based on a heavy colloidal particle, held by an optical trap and immersed in water.…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-05-21 Tushar K. Saha , Joseph N. E. Lucero , Jannik Ehrich , David A. Sivak , John Bechhoefer

Autonomous Maxwell demon is a new type of information engine proposed by Mandal and Jarzynski, which can produce work by exploiting an information tape. Here, we show that a stochastic resetting mechanism can be used to improve the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-09-27 Ruicheng Bao , Zhiyu Cao , Jiming Zheng , Zhonghuai Hou

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…

Thought experiments like Maxwell's Demon or the Feynman-Smoluchowski Ratchet can help in pursuing the microscopic origin of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Here we present a more sophisticated physical system than a ratchet, consisting of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-09-10 Simon Bienewald , Diego Marcel Fieguth , James R. Anglin

We provide a unified thermodynamic formalism describing information transfers in autonomous as well as nonautonomous systems described by stochastic thermodynamics. We demonstrate how information is continuously generated in an auxiliary…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-08-06 Jordan M. Horowitz , Massimiliano Esposito

Thermodynamics establishes that information acquired through measurement can be converted into work, as exemplified by Maxwell's demon and Szilard engines. Most experimental realizations of information engines, however, implicitly assume…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-09 Lokesh Muruga , Felix Ginot , Sarah A. M. Loos , Clemens Bechinger

Almost all processes -- highly correlated, weakly correlated, or correlated not at all---exhibit statistical fluctuations. Often physical laws, such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, address only typical realizations -- as highlighted by…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-09-09 James P. Crutchfield , Cina Aghamohammadi

We present a physical implementation of a Maxwell demon which consists of a conventional single electron transistor (SET) capacitively coupled to another quantum dot detecting its state. Altogether, the system is described by stochastic…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-02-01 Philipp Strasberg , Gernot Schaller , Tobias Brandes , Massimiliano Esposito

The nanoscopic isothermal machines are not only energy but also information transducers. We show that the generalized fluctuation theorem with information creation and entropy reduction can be fulfilled for the enzymatic molecular machines…

Biological Physics · Physics 2017-02-06 Michal Kurzynski , Przemyslaw Chelminiak

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

The averaged steady-state surprisal links a driven stochastic system's information processing to its nonequilibrium thermodynamic response. By explicitly accounting for the effects of nonequilibrium steady states, a decomposition of the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-06-07 Mikhael T. Semaan , James P. Crutchfield

Maxwell's demon is the quintessential example of information control, which is necessary for designing quantum devices. In thermodynamics, the demon is an intelligent being who utilizes the entropic nature of information to sort excitations…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-05-05 Kasper Poulsen , Marco Majland , Seth Lloyd , Morten Kjaergaard , Nikolaj T. Zinner

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…

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-12-29 Aki Kutvonen , Jonne Koski , Tapio Ala-Nissilä

This is a review of the theory of quantum thermodynamic demons; these are quantum systems that look like they violate the laws of thermodynamics, in analogy with Maxwell's demon. It concentrates on autonomous demons that can be made using…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2023-04-07 Robert S. Whitney
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