Landauer’s Principle in a Quantum Szilard Engine without Maxwell’s Demon
1
Fritz Haber Research Center, Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91904 Jerusalem, Israel
2
Nano Energy Research Group, Energy Institute, Istanbul Technical University, 34469 Istanbul, Turkey
3
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Entropy 2020, 22(3), 294; https://doi.org/10.3390/e22030294
Received: 19 February 2020
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Revised: 28 February 2020
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Accepted: 1 March 2020
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Published: 3 March 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Landauer Principle: Meaning, Physical Roots and Applications)
Quantum Szilard engine constitutes an adequate interplay of thermodynamics, information theory and quantum mechanics. Szilard engines are in general operated by a Maxwell’s Demon where Landauer’s principle resolves the apparent paradoxes. Here we propose a Szilard engine setup without featuring an explicit Maxwell’s demon. In a demonless Szilard engine, the acquisition of which-side information is not required, but the erasure and related heat dissipation still take place implicitly. We explore a quantum Szilard engine considering quantum size effects. We see that insertion of the partition does not localize the particle to one side, instead creating a superposition state of the particle being in both sides. To be able to extract work from the system, particle has to be localized at one side. The localization occurs as a result of quantum measurement on the particle, which shows the importance of the measurement process regardless of whether one uses the acquired information or not. In accordance with Landauer’s principle, localization by quantum measurement corresponds to a logically irreversible operation and for this reason it must be accompanied by the corresponding heat dissipation. This shows the validity of Landauer’s principle even in quantum Szilard engines without Maxwell’s demon.
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Keywords:
Szilard engine; Maxwell’s demon; quantum confinement
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MDPI and ACS Style
Aydin, A.; Sisman, A.; Kosloff, R. Landauer’s Principle in a Quantum Szilard Engine without Maxwell’s Demon. Entropy 2020, 22, 294. https://doi.org/10.3390/e22030294
AMA Style
Aydin A, Sisman A, Kosloff R. Landauer’s Principle in a Quantum Szilard Engine without Maxwell’s Demon. Entropy. 2020; 22(3):294. https://doi.org/10.3390/e22030294
Chicago/Turabian StyleAydin, Alhun, Altug Sisman, and Ronnie Kosloff. 2020. "Landauer’s Principle in a Quantum Szilard Engine without Maxwell’s Demon" Entropy 22, no. 3: 294. https://doi.org/10.3390/e22030294
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