Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets
We introduce a family of Maxwellian Demons for which correlations among information bearing degrees of freedom can be calculated exactly and in compact analytical form. This allows one to precisely determine Demon functional thermodynamic operating regimes, when previous methods either misclassify o...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2016-01-01
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| Series: | New Journal of Physics |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/2/023049 |
| _version_ | 1797750787011510272 |
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| author | Alexander B Boyd Dibyendu Mandal James P Crutchfield |
| author_facet | Alexander B Boyd Dibyendu Mandal James P Crutchfield |
| author_sort | Alexander B Boyd |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | We introduce a family of Maxwellian Demons for which correlations among information bearing degrees of freedom can be calculated exactly and in compact analytical form. This allows one to precisely determine Demon functional thermodynamic operating regimes, when previous methods either misclassify or simply fail due to approximations they invoke. This reveals that these Demons are more functional than previous candidates. They too behave either as engines, lifting a mass against gravity by extracting energy from a single heat reservoir, or as Landauer erasers, consuming external work to remove information from a sequence of binary symbols by decreasing their individual uncertainty. Going beyond these, our Demon exhibits a new functionality that erases bits not by simply decreasing individual-symbol uncertainty, but by increasing inter-bit correlations (that is, by adding temporal order) while increasing single-symbol uncertainty. In all cases, but especially in the new erasure regime, exactly accounting for informational correlations leads to tight bounds on Demon performance, expressed as a refined Second Law of thermodynamics that relies on the Kolmogorov–Sinai entropy for dynamical processes and not on changes purely in system configurational entropy, as previously employed. We rigorously derive the refined Second Law under minimal assumptions and so it applies quite broadly—for Demons with and without memory and input sequences that are correlated or not. We note that general Maxwellian Demons readily violate previously proposed, alternative such bounds, while the current bound still holds. As such, it broadly describes the minimal energetic cost of any computation by a thermodynamic system. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:38:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c83aa1025a764a4b8e09c162c9d0cf3f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1367-2630 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:38:51Z |
| publishDate | 2016-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
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| series | New Journal of Physics |
| spelling | doaj.art-c83aa1025a764a4b8e09c162c9d0cf3f2023-08-08T14:38:25ZengIOP PublishingNew Journal of Physics1367-26302016-01-0118202304910.1088/1367-2630/18/2/023049Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchetsAlexander B Boyd0Dibyendu Mandal1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4860-2559James P Crutchfield2Complexity Sciences Center and Physics Department, University of California at Davis , One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USADepartment of Physics, University of California , Berkeley, CA 94720, USAComplexity Sciences Center and Physics Department, University of California at Davis , One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USAWe introduce a family of Maxwellian Demons for which correlations among information bearing degrees of freedom can be calculated exactly and in compact analytical form. This allows one to precisely determine Demon functional thermodynamic operating regimes, when previous methods either misclassify or simply fail due to approximations they invoke. This reveals that these Demons are more functional than previous candidates. They too behave either as engines, lifting a mass against gravity by extracting energy from a single heat reservoir, or as Landauer erasers, consuming external work to remove information from a sequence of binary symbols by decreasing their individual uncertainty. Going beyond these, our Demon exhibits a new functionality that erases bits not by simply decreasing individual-symbol uncertainty, but by increasing inter-bit correlations (that is, by adding temporal order) while increasing single-symbol uncertainty. In all cases, but especially in the new erasure regime, exactly accounting for informational correlations leads to tight bounds on Demon performance, expressed as a refined Second Law of thermodynamics that relies on the Kolmogorov–Sinai entropy for dynamical processes and not on changes purely in system configurational entropy, as previously employed. We rigorously derive the refined Second Law under minimal assumptions and so it applies quite broadly—for Demons with and without memory and input sequences that are correlated or not. We note that general Maxwellian Demons readily violate previously proposed, alternative such bounds, while the current bound still holds. As such, it broadly describes the minimal energetic cost of any computation by a thermodynamic system.https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/2/023049Maxwell’s DemonMaxwell’s refrigeratordetailed balanceentropy rateSecond Law of thermodynamics |
| spellingShingle | Alexander B Boyd Dibyendu Mandal James P Crutchfield Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets New Journal of Physics Maxwell’s Demon Maxwell’s refrigerator detailed balance entropy rate Second Law of thermodynamics |
| title | Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets |
| title_full | Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets |
| title_fullStr | Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets |
| title_full_unstemmed | Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets |
| title_short | Identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous Maxwellian ratchets |
| title_sort | identifying functional thermodynamics in autonomous maxwellian ratchets |
| topic | Maxwell’s Demon Maxwell’s refrigerator detailed balance entropy rate Second Law of thermodynamics |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/2/023049 |
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