Related papers: Maxwell's Demon
A tantalizing version of Maxwell's demon is presented which appears to operate reversibly. A container of hard core disks is separated into two chambers of equal volume by a membrane that selects which disk can penetrate depending on the…
Adiabatic measurements, followed by feedback and erasure protocols, have often been considered as a model to embody Maxwell's Demon paradox and to study the interplay between thermodynamics and information processing. Such studies have led…
An interesting preprint by Puru Gujrati, "Maxwell's Demon Must Remain Subservient to Clausius' Statement" [ of the Second Law of Thermodynamics ], traces the development and application of Maxwell's Demon. He argues against the Demon on…
Maxwell's demon was born in 1867 and still thrives in modern physics. He plays important roles in clarifying the connections between two theories: thermodynamics and information. Here, we present the history of the demon and a variety of…
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…
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…
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…
With a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems undergoing, respectively, quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths at different stages of a cycle, we are able to clarify some…
As early as 1867, two years after the introduction of the concept of entropy by Clausius, Maxwell showed that the limitations imposed by the second law of thermodynamics depend on the information that one possesses about the state of a…
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…
Maxwells Demon is a mythical being, first described by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell (although named Maxwells Demon by Lord Kelvin). Maxwell used it in a thought experiment to potentially violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by…
Resolution of the century-long paradox on Maxwell's demon reveals a deep connection between information theory and thermodynamics. Although initially introduced as a thought experiment, Maxwell's demon can now be implemented in several…
Quantum Szilard engine constitutes an adequate interplay of thermodynamics, information theory and quantum mechanics. Szilard engines are in general operated by a Maxwell's Demon where Landauer's principle resolves the apparent paradoxes.…
Maxwell's demon is a famous thought experiment and a paradigm of the thermodynamics of information. It is related to Szilard's engine, a two-state information-to-work conversion device in which the demon performs single measurements and…
According to Landauer's principle, erasure of information is the only part of a computation process that unavoidably involves energy dissipation. If done reversibly, such an erasure generates the minimal heat of $k_BT\ln 2$ per erased bit…
This paper discusses Maxwell's demon thought experiment. In recent years, there has been extensive research on Maxwell's demon. I first provide a detailed overview of important historical milestones of Maxwell's demon thought experiment.…
In mathematical physical analyses of Szilard's engine and Maxwell's demon, a general assumption (explicit or implicit) is that one can neglect the energy needed for relocating the piston in Szilard's engine and for driving the trap door in…
In an asymmetric Szilard engine model of Maxwell's demon, we show the equivalence between information theoretical and thermodynamic entropies when the demon erases information optimally. The work gain by the engine can be exactly canceled…
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…
With the increasing interest for the control of the system at the nano and mesoscopic scales, studies have been focused on the limit of the energy dissipation in an open system by refining the concept of the Maxwell's demon. The well-known…