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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…
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 propose a setup based on two coupled quantum dots where thermodynamics of a measurement can be quantitatively characterized. The information obtained in the measurement can be utilized by performing feedback in a manner apparently…
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…
Maxwell's demon is a special case of a feedback controlled system, where information gathered by measurement is utilized by driving a system along a thermodynamic process that depends on the measurement outcome. The demon illustrates that…
We discuss the thermodynamic aspects of a single qubit based device, powered by weak quantum measurements, and feedback controlled by a quantum Maxwell's demon. We discuss both discrete and time-continuous operation of the measurement based…
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…
A Maxwell's demon is a device that gets information and trades it in for thermodynamic advantage, in apparent (but not actual) contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. Quantum-mechanical versions of Maxwell's demon exhibit…
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…
After presenting possible motives for fighting against the second law of thermodynamics, several attempts to beat this law are analyzed. The second law wins, but an interesting interpretation of it emerges. This interpretation uses the…
Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy, as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a "Maxwell's demon" to power a single-temperature heat engine, by decreasing the entropy. Quantum…
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…
We study the reduction in total entropy, and associated conversion of environmental heat into work, arising from the coupling and decoupling of two systems followed by processing determined by suitable mutual feedback. The scheme is based…
Maxwell's demon was created with abilities to violate the second law of thermodynamics. But the demon always fell short of doing so because of the imposed restrictive condition that reads, the demon needs to do "work". Therefore, you can…
We present a pedagogical review of the fundamental concepts in thermodynamics of information, by focusing on the second law of thermodynamics and the entropy production. Especially, we discuss the relationship among thermodynamic…
Feedback control of open quantum systems is of fundamental importance for practical applications in various contexts, ranging from quantum computation to quantum error correction and quantum metrology. Its use in the context of…
Maxwell's demon elucidates the value of information in thermodynamics, using measurement and feedback: he evolves an equilibrated gas into a nonequilibrium state, from which one might extract work. The demon can evolve the system farther…
We introduce a Maxwell demon which generates many-body entanglement robustly against bit-flip noises, which allows us to obtain quantum advantage. Adopting the protocol of the voter model used for opinion dynamics approaching consensus, the…
I dispute the conventional claim that the second law of thermodynamics is saved from a "Maxwell's Demon" by the entropy cost of information erasure, and show that instead it is measurement that incurs the entropy cost. Thus Brillouin, who…
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…