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arXiv:2001.07445 · Physical Review Research

Autonomous Maxwell's demon in a cavity QED system

Baldo-Luis Najera-Santos, Patrice A. Camati, Valentin Métillon, M. Brune, J. M. Raimond, Alexia Auffèves, I. Dotsenko

Published Jul 23, 2020• 33 citations
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Abstract

This work exploits a cavity QED system to investigate the connection between energy, information and the thermodynamic arrow of time in the quantum realm. The paper proposes an autonomous scheme of the Maxwell's demon with a single Rydberg atom and a microwave resonator and studies the change of the mutual information between the demon and the qubit-cavity system

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.2.032025

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This work exploits a cavity QED system to investigate the connection between energy, information and the thermodynamic arrow of time in the quantum realm. The paper proposes an autonomous scheme of the Maxwell's demon with a single Rydberg atom and a microwave resonator and studies the change of the mutual information between the demon and the qubit-cavity system
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In apparent contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon is able to cyclically extract work from a system in contact with a thermal bath, exploiting the information about its microstate. The resolution of this paradox required the insight that an intimate relationship exists between information and thermodynamics. Here, we realize a Maxwell demon experiment that tracks the state of each constituent in both the classical and quantum regimes. The demon is a microwave cavity that encodes quantum information about a superconducting qubit and converts information into work by powering up a propagating microwave pulse by stimulated emission. Thanks to the high level of control of superconducting circuits, we directly measure the extracted work and quantify the entropy remaining in the demon's memory. This experiment provides an enlightening illustration of the interplay of thermodynamics with quantum information.
I study an autonomous quantum Maxwell's demon based on two exchange-coupled quantum dots attached to the spin-polarized leads. The principle of operation of the demon is based on the coherent oscillations between the spin states of the system which act as a quantum iSWAP gate. Due to the operation of the iSWAP gate, one of the dots acts as a feedback controller which blocks the transport with the bias in the other dot, thus inducing the electron pumping against the bias; this leads to the locally negative entropy production. Operation of the demon is associated with the information transfer between the dots, which is studied quantitatively by mapping the analyzed setup onto the thermodynamically equivalent auxiliary system. The calculated entropy production in a single subsystem and information flow between the subsystems are shown to obey a local form of the second law of thermodynamics, similar to the one previously derived for classical bipartite systems.
Maxwell’s demon is a thought experiment in which the second rule of thermodynamics is violated. Originally, the thought experiment consisted of two connected cavities with a filter betweenthem. The demon could choose to let particles go through the connection gap. If the demonwere to let faster moving particles to one cavity and slower moving particles to the other cavity itwould introduce a temperature difference in the system. Thus, decreasing the total entropy of thesystem violating the second rule of thermodynamics.In classical mechanics the experiment can be implemented as a two-dimensional two-cavitysystem, where one cavity is integrable and the other is chaotic. The probability for a particleto travel from the chaotic cavity to the integrable is greater than vice versa. This creates animbalance in an observable such as pressure.In this thesis we investigate the quantum mechanical counterpart of the classical double cavitywith one cavity being an integrable rectangle and the other one a chaotic stadium. We initialize thesystem with a quantum mechanical wave packet in one of the cavities and compute the system’stime-evolution. The time-evolution is analyzed with visualizations of the probability density and byinspecting observables related to the system’s ergodic properties such as autocorrelation, inverseparticipation ratio, and information entropy.If initialized in the chaotic cavity, we have found that the wave packet propagates much fasterto the other cavity than if it was initially in the regular cavity. This is a quantum mechanicaldemonstration of the original Maxwell’s thought experiment.
We study an autonomous quantum system which exhibits refrigeration under an information-work trade-off like a Maxwell demon. The system becomes correlated as a single "demon" qubit interacts sequentially with memory qubits while in contact with two heat reservoirs of different temperatures. Using strong subadditivity of the von Neumann entropy, we derive a global Clausius inequality to show thermodynamic advantages from access to correlated information. It is demonstrated, in a matrix product density operator formalism, that our demon can simultaneously realize refrigeration against a thermal gradient and erasure of information from its memory, which is impossible without correlations. The phenomenon can be even enhanced by the presence of quantum coherence.