Erasure without work in an asymmetric, double-well potential

Abstract

According to Landauer's principle, erasing a memory requires an average work of at least $kT\ln 2$ per bit. Recent experiments have confirmed this prediction for a one-bit memory represented by a symmetric double-well potential. Here, we present an experimental study of erasure for a memory encoded in an asymmetric double-well potential. Using a feedback trap, we find that the average work to erase can be less than $kT\ln 2$. Surprisingly, erasure protocols that differ subtly give measurably different values for the asymptotic work, a result we explain by showing that one protocol is symmetric with the respect to time reversal, while the other is not. The differences between the protocols help clarify the distinctions between thermodynamic and logical reversibility.

6 pages, 5 figures, and supplemental material

References in corpus (25)

• Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems, and molecular machines
• Information heat engine: converting information to energy by feedback control
• Efficiency at maximum power: An analytically solvable model for stochastic heat engines
• Dissipation: The phase-space perspective
• High-precision test of Landauer's principle in a feedback trap
• Minimal Energy Cost for Thermodynamic Information Processing: Measurement and Information Erasure
• Experimental realization of a Szilard engine with a single electron
• On-chip Maxwell's demon as an information-powered refrigerator
• Entropy production and the arrow of time
• Universal features in the energetics of symmetry breaking
• Experimental rectification of entropy production by a Maxwell's Demon in a quantum system
• Complementarity relation for irreversible process derived from stochastic energetics
• Experimental demonstration of information to energy conversion in a quantum system at the Landauer Limit
• Thermodynamic and Logical Reversibilities Revisited
• Optimal finite-time erasure of a classical bit
• Decision Making in the Arrow of Time
• Memory erasure in small systems
• Generalising Landauer's Principle
• Sub $k_{B}T$ micro-electromechanical irreversible logic gate
• Virtual potentials for feedback traps
• Demon Dynamics: Deterministic Chaos, the Szilard Map, and the Intelligence of Thermodynamic Systems
• Real-time calibration of a feedback trap
• Arbitrarily slow, non-quasistatic, isothermal transformations
• Relations between Entropies Produced in Nondeterministic Thermodynamic Processes
• Information Thermodynamics: Maxwell's Demon in Nonequilibrium Dynamics

Cited by in corpus (49)

• Quantum and Information Thermodynamics: A Unifying Framework based on Repeated Interactions
• Finite-time Landauer principle
• Non-Markovianity and negative entropy production rates
• Single-Temperature Quantum Engine Without Feedback Control
• Thermodynamics of Gambling Demons
• Quantum fluctuations hinder finite-time information erasure near the Landauer limit
• Direct measurement of nonequilibrium system entropy is consistent with Gibbs-Shannon form
• Universal Bound on Energy Cost of Bit Reset in Finite Time
• Optimal finite-time bit erasure under full control
• Optimal Control in Stochastic Thermodynamics
• Energy dynamics, heat production and heat-work conversion with qubits: towards the development of quantum machines
• Nanoscale virtual potentials using optical tweezers
• Thermodynamic cost and benefit of memory
• Diverging, but negligible power at Carnot efficiency: theory and experiment
• Optical tweezers as a mathematically driven spatio-temporal potential generator
• Minimally dissipative information erasure in a quantum dot via thermodynamic length
• Quantum Fluctuation Theorems
• Finite-time Landauer principle beyond weak coupling
• Brownian motion surviving in the unstable cubic potential and the role of Maxwell's demon
• Landauer Principle and Thermodynamics of Computation
• Many-body quantum dynamics of an asymmetric bosonic Josephson junction
• Discrete fluctuations in memory erasure without energy cost
• Solution to the Fokker-Planck equation for slowly driven Brownian motion: Emergent geometry and a formula for the corresponding thermodynamic metric
• Performance of optimal linear-response processes in driven Brownian motion far from equilibrium
• Cooperative quantum information erasure
• Memory Erasure using Time Multiplexed Potentials
• Surmounting potential barriers: hydrodynamic memory hedges against thermal fluctuations in particle transport
• Feedback traps for virtual potentials
• Optimal work extraction and mutual information in a generalized Szilárd engine
• Quantifying protocol efficiency: a thermodynamic figure of merit for classical and quantum state-transfer protocols
• Generalized Continuous Maxwell Demons
• Probabilistic work extraction on a classical oscillator beyond the second law
• Inferring entropy production from time-dependent moments
• Hamiltonian Memory: An Erasable Classical Bit
• Thermodynamics of majority-logic decoding in information erasure
• Optimal Work Extraction and the Minimum Description Length Principle
• Three types of Landauer's erasure principle: a microscopic view
• Partially Observable Szilard Engines
• Erasing a majority-logic bit
• Thermodynamics of memory erasure via a spin reservoir
• Experimentally achieving minimal dissipation via thermodynamically optimal transport
• A Shortcut to Finite-time Memory Erasure
• Experimental nonequilibrium memory erasure beyond Landauer's bound
• Generalized Landauer bound from absolute irreversibility
• Thermodynamics of multiple Maxwell demons
• Optimally Fast Qubit Reset
• Dynamical control of particle jets from a driven condensate in a one-dimensional lattice with double-well potential
• Improving the efficiency of finite-time memory erasure with potential barrier shaping
• Optimal finite-time processes in weakly driven overdamped Brownian motion