Information as a Physical Resource: Quantum Maxwell Demon Arrays and the Thermodynamics of Measurement

Abstract

Information is usually treated as something we use to describe the physical world. In modern physics, however, there is growing evidence that information itself behaves like a physical resource, subject to the same laws that govern energy, heat, and matter. This paper develops that perspective through a concrete experimental proposal we call Quantum Maxwell Demon Arrays (QMDA)—systems that use measurement and feedback at the quantum scale to convert information about a system into controlled physical work. Building on established results such as the Landauer bound and the Szilard engine, we show that information acquired through measurement can be converted into usable free energy, provided that its physical costs and constraints are properly accounted for. In QMDA, measurements are not passive observations but active physical interactions whose outcomes can be stored, processed, and exploited thermodynamically. Organized into arrays, these measurement–feedback units act collectively, allowing information flow itself to shape energy extraction, entropy production, and system control. We demonstrate how QMDA can serve as experimental probes of information thermodynamics, enabling direct tests of how information constrains and enables physical processes in quantum regimes. This framework clarifies the status of measurement as a physical operation rather than a subjective act of interpretation, and it suggests new pathways toward ultra-efficient computation, precision sensing, and energy management within known thermodynamic limits. More broadly, this work supports the view that information is not merely a bookkeeping device for observers, but a fundamental ingredient of physical dynamics—one that can be quantified, manipulated, and transformed into free energy under well-defined physical rules.