Related papers: Mechanical work extraction from an error-prone act…
The Szilard engine stands as a compelling illustration of the intricate interplay between information and thermodynamics. While at thermodynamic equilibrium, the apparent breach of the second law of thermodynamics was reconciled by Landauer…
A Szilard Engine is a hypothetical device which is able to extract work from a single thermal reservoir by measuring the position of particles within the engine. We derive the amount of work that can be extracted from such a device in the…
Szil\'ard's information engine is a canonical example in the field of thermodynamics of information. We realize experimentally a macroscopic many-particle Szil\'ard engine that consists of active particles and use it to lift a mass against…
Here, we show the implementation of a complete cycle of a quantum engine fuelled by information. This engine is a quantum version of the Szilard engine, where information is used to extract heat from the environment and fully convert it…
The out of equilibrium nature of active systems can be exploited for the design of information-based engines. We design two types of an active Szilard engine that use a Maxwell daemon to extract work from an active bath composed of…
We present a computational model for Szilard's engine and the information discarding process. Taking advantage of a fact that the one is essentially the reversed cycle of the other, we can discuss the both by employing the same model.…
The conversion of thermal energy into work is usually more efficient in the slow-driving regime, where the power output is vanishingly small. Efficient work extraction for fast driving protocols remains an outstanding challenge at the…
In a classic thought experiment, Szilard suggested a heat engine where a single particle, for example an atom or a molecule, is confined in a container coupled to a single heat bath. The container can be separated into two parts by a…
The key question of this paper is whether work can be extracted from a heat engine by using purely quantum mechanical information. If the answer is yes, what is its mathematical formula? First, by using a bipartite memory we show that the…
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…
We study the efficiency of a single particle Szilard and Carnot engine. Within a first order correction to the quasi-static limit, the work distribution is found to be Gaussian and the correction factor to average work and efficiency only…
We study experimentally work fluctuations in a Szilard engine that extracts work from information encoded as the occupancy of an electron level in a semiconductor quantum dot. We show that as the average work extracted per bit of…
A 1929 Gedankenexperiment proposed by Szil\'ard, often referred to as "Szil\'ard's engine", has served as a foundation for computing fundamental thermodynamic bounds to information processing. While Szil\'ard's original box could be…
Gathering information about a system enables greater control over it. This principle lies at the core of information engines, which use measurement-based feedback to rectify thermal noise and convert information into work. Originating from…
We review recent studies of a colloidal information engine that consists of a bead in water and held by an optical trap. The bead is ratcheted upward without any apparent external work, by taking advantage of favorable thermal fluctuations.…
We discuss work extraction from classical information engines (e.g., Szil\'ard) with $N$-particles, $q$ partitions, and initial arbitrary non-equilibrium states. In particular, we focus on their {\em optimal} behaviour, which includes the…
A finite cycle time information engine based on a two-level system in contact with a thermal reservoir is studied analytically. The model for the engine incorporates an error in measuring the system's state and time delay between the…
In a recent paper [Vaikuntanathan and Jarzynski, Phys. Rev. E {\bf 83}, 061120 (2011), arXiv:1105.1744] a model was introduced whereby work could be extracted from a thermal bath by measuring the energy of a particle that was thermalized by…
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…
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…