Non-equilibrium System as a Demon
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2019-12-09 v4 Statistical Mechanics
Optics
Quantum Physics
Abstract
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 subsequently performing feedback. Here we show that much simpler setups can still act as demons: we demonstrate that it is sufficient to exploit a non-equilibrium distribution to seemingly break the second law of thermodynamics. We propose both an electronic and an optical implementation of this phenomenon, realizable with current technology.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1811.02453,
title = {Non-equilibrium System as a Demon},
author = {Rafael Sánchez and Janine Splettstoesser and Robert S. Whitney},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.02453},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
final version: 6 pages, 4 figures (minor typos corrected - very minor title change to fit PRL style)