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Thermodynamics of information

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 131–139 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

By its very nature, the second law of thermodynamics is probabilistic, in that its formulation requires a probabilistic description of the state of a system. This raises questions about the objectivity of the second law: does it depend, for example, on what we know about the system? For over a century, much effort has been devoted to incorporating information into thermodynamics and assessing the entropic and energetic costs of manipulating information. More recently, this historically theoretical pursuit has become relevant in practical situations where information is manipulated at small scales, such as in molecular and cell biology, artificial nano-devices or quantum computation. Here we give an introduction to a novel theoretical framework for the thermodynamics of information based on stochastic thermodynamics and fluctuation theorems, review some recent experimental results, and present an overview of the state of the art in the field.

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Figure 1: The Szilárd engine and recent experimental realizations.
Figure 2: Toy model of a memory.
Figure 3: Schematic of measurement, feedback and reset.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the COST Action MP1209 ‘Thermodynamics in the quantum regime’. J.M.R.P. is supported financially by the Spanish MINECO Grant ENFASIS (FIS2011-22644). J.M.H. is supported financially by the ARO MURI grant W911NF-11-1-0268. T.S. is supported financially by JSPS KAKENHI Grants No. 22340114 and No. 25800217.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear and GISC, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Juan M. R. Parrondo

  2. Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Boston, Massachusetts 02125, USA

    Jordan M. Horowitz

  3. Department of Basic Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan

    Takahiro Sagawa

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  1. Juan M. R. Parrondo
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Correspondence to Juan M. R. Parrondo.

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Parrondo, J., Horowitz, J. & Sagawa, T. Thermodynamics of information. Nature Phys 11, 131–139 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3230

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