Information erasure without an energy cost
Vaccaro, Joan A. and Barnett, Stephen M. (2011) Information erasure without an energy cost. Proceedings A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 467 (2130). pp. 1770-1778. ISSN 1471-2962
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Abstract
Landauer argued that the process of erasing the information stored in a memory device incurs an energy cost in the form of a minimum amount of mechanical work. We find, however, that this energy cost can be reduced to zero by paying a cost in angular momentum or any other conserved quantity. Erasing the memory of Maxwell's demon in this way implies that work can be extracted from a single thermal reservoir at a cost of angular momentum and an increase in total entropy. The implications of this for the second law of thermodynamics are assessed.
Creators(s): | Vaccaro, Joan A. and Barnett, Stephen M.; | Item type: | Article |
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ID code: | 31065 |
Keywords: | information erasure, thermodynamics, canonical ensemble, spin system, Physics, Physics and Astronomy(all), Engineering(all), Mathematics(all) |
Subjects: | Science > Physics |
Department: | Faculty of Science > Physics |
Depositing user: | Pure Administrator |
Date deposited: | 16 May 2011 10:29 |
Last modified: | 29 Jan 2021 02:02 |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/31065 |
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