English

Axiomatic relation between thermodynamic and information-theoretic entropies

Quantum Physics 2017-01-04 v2 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Thermodynamic entropy, as defined by Clausius, characterizes macroscopic observations of a system based on phenomenological quantities such as temperature and heat. In contrast, information-theoretic entropy, introduced by Shannon, is a measure of uncertainty. In this Letter, we connect these two notions of entropy, using an axiomatic framework for thermodynamics [Lieb, Yngvason, Proc. Roy. Soc.(2013)]. In particular, we obtain a direct relation between the Clausius entropy and the Shannon entropy, or its generalisation to quantum systems, the von Neumann entropy. More generally, we find that entropy measures relevant in non-equilibrium thermodynamics correspond to entropies used in one-shot information theory.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1501.06920,
  title  = {Axiomatic relation between thermodynamic and information-theoretic entropies},
  author = {Mirjam Weilenmann and Lea Krämer and Philippe Faist and Renato Renner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.06920},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

4+15 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:14:23.785Z