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Recently, in a letter to Nature, del Rio et al.8 exploited the quantum viewpoint of the old but well-known thought experiment of Maxwell's demon, a tiny "man-machine" that processes only a single unit of information. In their work, they…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2013-01-21 Alexandre de Castro

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-07-11 Cyril Elouard , David Herrera-Martí , Benjamin Huard , Alexia Auffèves

We study the physical mechanism of Maxwell's Demon (MD) helping to do extra work in thermodynamic cycles, by describing measurement of position, insertion of wall and information erasing of MD in a quantum mechanical fashion. The heat…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-05-19 H. Dong , D. Z. Xu , C. P. Sun

Information engines, sometimes referred to as Maxwell Demon engines, utilize information obtained through measurement to control the conversion of energy into useful work. Discussions around such devices often assume the measurement step to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-05-02 Henning Kirchberg , Abraham Nitzan

We present here a machine that is capable of extracting work from a single heat bath. Although no significant temperature gradient is involved in the operation of the machine, yet the Carnot efficiency as high as one is achievable. Working…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Arbab A. Khan , M. S. Ansari

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

Maxwell's demon (MD) has proven an instructive vehicle by which to explore the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics, fueling the possibility of information driven machines. A long standing debate has been the concern…

In Szilard's engine, a demon measures a one-particle gas and applies feedback to extract work from thermal fluctuations, embodying Maxwell's notion that information reduces thermodynamic entropy - an apparent second-law violation. The…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-08-26 Xiangjun Xing

We propose and analyze Maxwell's demon based on a single qubit with avoided level crossing. Its operation cycle consists of adiabatic drive to the point of minimum energy separation, measurement of the qubit state, and conditional feedback.…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-01-20 J. P. Pekola , D. S. Golubev , D. V. Averin

Recently Sagawa and Ueda [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 080403 (2008)] derived a bound on the work that can be extracted from a quantum system with the use of feedback control. They left open the question of whether this bound could be achieved for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-08-05 Kurt Jacobs

Maxwell's demons work by rectifying thermal fluctuations. They are not expected to function at macroscopic scales where fluctuations become negligible and dynamics become deterministic. We propose an electronic implementation of an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-10-05 Nahuel Freitas , Massimiliano Esposito

In scenarios coined Maxwell's demon, information on microscopic degrees of freedom is used to seemingly violate the second law of thermodynamics. This has been studied in the classical as well as the quantum domain. In this paper, we study…

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

We analyze a quantum Maxwell demon operating a Szilard engine in free fall near a black hole horizon, where quantum information, thermodynamics, and spacetime causality intersect. The demon is modeled as a coherent two-level system, and the…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-05-12 Hamed Hadi , Amin Rezaei Akbarieh , Goksel Daylan Esmer

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 most succinct manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics is the limitation the Landauer principle imposes on the amount of heat a Maxwell demon (MD) can convert into free energy per single bit of information obtained in a…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2015-01-29 J. V. Koski , V. F. Maisi , J. P. Pekola , D. V. Averin

Landauer's principle states that erasure of each bit of information in a system requires at least a unit of energy $k_B T \ln 2$ to be dissipated. In return, the blank bit may possibly be utilized to extract usable work of the amount $k_B T…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2018-06-20 A. Mert Bozkurt , Baris Pekerten , Inanc Adagideli

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

Motivated by the recent work by Mandal and Jarzynski on autonomous Maxwell demon information engine, we have extended their model by introducing two different heat baths. The system (demon) is coupled to a memory register (tape) and a work…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-11-23 Shubhashis Rana , A. M. Jayannavar

Classical and quantum error correction are presented in the form of Maxwell's demon and their efficiency analyzed from the thermodynamic point of view. We explain how Landauer's principle of information erasure applies to both cases. By…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-10-31 V. Vedral