Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications

A generalized form of Landauer’s bound on the dissipative cost of classical information processing in quantum-mechanical systems is proved using a new approach. This approach sidesteps some prominent objections to standard proofs of Landauer’s bound—broadly interpreted here as a nonzero lower bound...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Neal G. Anderson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-10-01
Series:Entropy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/24/11/1568
_version_ 1797468377825935360
author Neal G. Anderson
author_facet Neal G. Anderson
author_sort Neal G. Anderson
collection DOAJ
description A generalized form of Landauer’s bound on the dissipative cost of classical information processing in quantum-mechanical systems is proved using a new approach. This approach sidesteps some prominent objections to standard proofs of Landauer’s bound—broadly interpreted here as a nonzero lower bound on the amount of energy that is irreversibly transferred from a physical system to its environment for each bit of information that is lost from the system—while establishing a far more general result. Specializations of our generalized Landauer bound for ideal and non-ideal information processing operations, including but not limited to the simplified forms for erasure and logical operations most familiar from the literature, are presented and discussed. These bounds, taken together, enable reconsideration of the links between logical reversibility, physical reversibility, and conditioning of operations in contexts that include but are far more general than the thermodynamic model systems that are most widely invoked in discussions of Landauer’s Principle. Because of the strategy used to prove the generalized bounds and these specializations, this work may help to illuminate and resolve some longstanding controversies related to dissipation in computation.
first_indexed 2024-03-09T19:05:37Z
format Article
id doaj.art-8fb3c052596a48c6b07fae51e080c643
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 1099-4300
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-09T19:05:37Z
publishDate 2022-10-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Entropy
spelling doaj.art-8fb3c052596a48c6b07fae51e080c6432023-11-24T04:36:27ZengMDPI AGEntropy1099-43002022-10-012411156810.3390/e24111568Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and ApplicationsNeal G. Anderson0Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003-9292, USAA generalized form of Landauer’s bound on the dissipative cost of classical information processing in quantum-mechanical systems is proved using a new approach. This approach sidesteps some prominent objections to standard proofs of Landauer’s bound—broadly interpreted here as a nonzero lower bound on the amount of energy that is irreversibly transferred from a physical system to its environment for each bit of information that is lost from the system—while establishing a far more general result. Specializations of our generalized Landauer bound for ideal and non-ideal information processing operations, including but not limited to the simplified forms for erasure and logical operations most familiar from the literature, are presented and discussed. These bounds, taken together, enable reconsideration of the links between logical reversibility, physical reversibility, and conditioning of operations in contexts that include but are far more general than the thermodynamic model systems that are most widely invoked in discussions of Landauer’s Principle. Because of the strategy used to prove the generalized bounds and these specializations, this work may help to illuminate and resolve some longstanding controversies related to dissipation in computation.https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/24/11/1568Landauer’s Principlephysics of information and computationirreversibility
spellingShingle Neal G. Anderson
Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
Entropy
Landauer’s Principle
physics of information and computation
irreversibility
title Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
title_full Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
title_fullStr Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
title_full_unstemmed Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
title_short Generalized Landauer Bound for Information Processing: Proof and Applications
title_sort generalized landauer bound for information processing proof and applications
topic Landauer’s Principle
physics of information and computation
irreversibility
url https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/24/11/1568
work_keys_str_mv AT nealganderson generalizedlandauerboundforinformationprocessingproofandapplications