Related papers: Conditional action and quantum versions of Maxwell…
The limit of energy saving in the control of small systems has recently attracted much interest due to the concept refinement of the Maxwell demon. Inspired by a newly proposed set of fluctuation theorems, we report the first experimental…
We analyze an engine whose working fluid consists of a single quantum particle, paralleling Szilard's construction of a classical single-particle engine. Following his resolution of Maxwell's Second Law paradox using the latter, which…
The paradox of Maxwell's demon motivated the development of information thermodynamics and the creation of nanoscale information engines. We now understand that machines such as the molecular motors within cells can in principle harvest…
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…
The simulation of low-temperature properties of many-body systems remains one of the major challenges in theoretical and experimental quantum information science. We present, and demonstrate experimentally, a universal cooling method which…
We discuss a self-contained spin-boson model for a measurement-driven engine, in which a demon generates work from thermal excitations of a quantum spin via measurement and feedback control. Instead of granting it full direct access to the…
The thermodynamical costs imposed by computational resource limitations like memory and time have been investigated before. We focus on a new computational limitation, namely, the machine being allowed to scan the input only once, and prove…
We investigate the role of chirality on the performance of a Maxwell demon implemented in a quantum Hall bar with a localized impurity. Within a stochastic thermodynamics description we investigate the ability of such a demon to drive a…
Quantum operations provide a general description of the state changes allowed by quantum mechanics. The reversal of quantum operations is important for quantum error-correcting codes, teleportation, and reversing quantum measurements. We…
Although there is not a complete "proof" of the second law of thermo- dynamics based on microscopic dynamics, two properties of Hamiltonian systems have been used to prove the impossibility of work extraction from a single thermal…
External piecewise-constant feedback control can modify energetic and entropic balances, allowing in extreme scenarios for Maxwell demon operational modes. Without specifying the actual implementation of external feedback loops, one can…
According to the Maxwell demon paradigm, additional work can be extracted from a classical or quantum system by exploiting information obtained through measurements on a correlated ancillary system. In the quantum setting, the maximum work…
The essence of both classical and quantum engines is to extract useful energy (work) from stochastic energy sources, e.g. thermal baths. In Maxwell's demon engines, work extraction is assisted by a feedback control based on measurements…
In this theoretical study, we determine the maximum amount of work extractable in finite time by a demon performing continuous measurements on a quadratic Hamiltonian system subjected to thermal fluctuations, in terms of the information…
Leo Szilard pointed out that Maxwell's demon can be replaced by machinery, thereby laying the foundation for understanding the physical nature of information. Szilard's information engine still serves as a canonical example after almost a…
The Szil\'ard engine is a mechanism (akin to Maxwell's demon) for converting information into energy, which seemingly violates the second law of thermodynamics. Originally a classical thought experiment, it was extended to a quantized…
Emerging evidence suggests that physical systems operating as Maxwell demons, in which some subsystem of a larger system extracts heat energy from its environment in an apparent local violation of the second law, are commonplace throughout…
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…
We theoretically study the entropy production and the work extracted from a system connected to two reservoirs by periodic modulations of the electrochemical potentials of the reservoirs and the parameter of a system Hamiltonian under…
An indefinite causal order, where the causes of events are not necessarily in past events, is predicted by the process matrix framework. A fundamental question is how these non-separable causal structures can be related to the thermodynamic…