Landauer's principle in the quantum domain

Abstract

Recent papers discussing thermodynamic processes in strongly coupled quantum systems claim a violation of Landauer's principle and imply a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If true, this would have powerful consequences. Perpetuum mobiles could be build as long as the operating temperature is brought close to zero. It would also have serious consequences on thermodynamic derivations of information theoretic results, such as the Holevo bound. Here we argue why these claims are erroneous. Correlations occurring in the strongly coupled, quantum domain require a rethink of how entropy, heat and work are calculated. It is shown that a consistent treatment solves the paradox.

References in corpus (1)

• Validity of Landauer's principle in the quantum regime

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Implications of non-Markovian dynamics for the Landauer bound
• Fundamental work cost of quantum processes
• Thermodynamics of Quantum Measurement and the Demon's Arrow of Time
• Dynamical Landauer Principle: Quantifying Information Transmission by Thermodynamics
• A perspective on Lindblad's Non-Equilibrium Entropy
• Decompositional equivalence: A fundamental symmetry underlying quantum theory