Related papers: Maxwell's demon, rectifiers, and the second law: C…

Mechanical Maxwell's demons, such as Smoluchowski's trapdoor and Feynman's ratchet and pawl need external energy source to operate. If you cease to feed a demon the Second Law of thermodynamics will quickly stop its operation. Nevertheless,…

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…

In the present paper, several issues concerning the second law of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon and Landauer's principle are dealt with. I argue that if the demon and the system on which it operates without dissipation of external energy…

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…

Building on a model introduced by Mandal and Jarzynski [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., {\bf 109}, (2012) 11641], we present a simple version of an autonomous reversible Maxwell's demon. By changing the entropy of a tape consisting of a…

A demonic being, introduced by Maxwell, to miraculously create thermal non-equilibrium and violate the Second law of thermodynamics, has been among the most intriguing and elusive wishful concepts for over 150 years. Maxwell and his…

Using classical thermodynamics, we argue that Maxwell's demon loses its battle against Clausius as any temperature difference or other thermodynamic forces it creates is immediately compensated by spontaneous counterbalancing flows that…

We present an autonomous Maxwell's demon scheme. It is first analysed theoretically in term of information exchange in a closed system and then implemented experimentally with a single Rydberg atom and a high-quality microwave resonator.…

We propose a physically realizable Maxwell's demon device using a spin valve interacting unitarily for a short time with electrons placed on a tape of quantum dots, which is thermodynamically equivalent to the device introduced by Mandal…

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…

We argue that Maxwell's demon is incapable of creating a nonzero temperature difference. Hence, it does not destroy equilibrium and the second law is never at risk, contrary to the claim by Maxwell and accepted by many. It is therefore…

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…

We study an autonomous model of a Maxwell demon that works by rectifying thermal fluctuations of chemical reactions. It constitutes the chemical analog of a recently studied electronic demon. We characterize its scaling behavior in the…

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…

Maxwellian ratchets are autonomous, finite-state thermodynamic engines that implement input-output informational transformations. Previous studies of these "demons" focused on how they exploit environmental resources to generate work: They…

Maxwell demons are creatures that are imagined to be able to reduce the entropy of a system without performing any work on it. Conventionally, such a Maxwell demon's intricate action consists of measuring individual particles and…

The probabilistic information flow and natural computational capability of a system with two magnetic skyrmions at room temperature have been experimentally evaluated. Based on this evaluation, an all-solid-state built-in Maxwell's demon…

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…

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…

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…