Standard physics correctly predicts that an excited electron decays to a lower orbital and emitsa photon, yet its explanatory nucleus is tautological: “the system minimizes energy.” Energyis treated as primitive, and the reason the Universe exports energy to the vacuum is delegatedto spontaneous emission postulates or to an external reservoir, without an information-theoreticaccounting of the discarded degrees of freedom. Building on MetaTime Modelo 3, where theStandard Model is formulated as a boundary open effective field theory (open-EFT) with a causal nonMarkovian influence functional characterized by a running latency ΓL(µ), we propose a mechanisticreinterpretation: an excited orbital is not merely “higher energy” but a state of higher algorithmiccomplexity—a larger bulk entanglement wedge footprint required to stabilize its boundary geometryagainst vacuum noise. Orbital relaxation is a compression event that erases a definite informationbudget ∆I into the traced-out bath. By Landauer’s principle, erasing ∆I bits must dissipate energyE ≥ kBTeff ln 2 ∆I. We identify the emitted photon as this mandatory Landauer export and treat itsfrequency ω as the bath’s erasure clock rate, yielding the exchange relation Eγ ≃ ℏω ≃ kBTeff ln 2 ∆I.The Planck relation thus emerges as an informational exchange rate: Planck’s constant is the “priceof a bit” evaluated at the vacuum’s effective erasure temperature. For the hydrogen Lyman-αtransition 2p → 1s in free vacuum, defining ∆I via a Jensen–Shannon information metric on orbitalprobability densities gives ∆I2p→1s = 0.64079 bits and implies an effective erasure temperatureTeff ≃ 2.66 × 105 K. We outline falsifiable extensions in which Teff and ΓL become environmentallytunable (cavity QED, dense media), producing correlated deviations in line shapes and relaxationpathways beyond standard QED vacuum fluctuations.
Standard physics correctly predicts that an excited electron decays to a lower orbital and emitsa photon, yet its explanatory nucleus is tautological: “the system minimizes energy.” Energyis treated as primitive, and the reason the Universe exports energy to the vacuum is delegatedto spontaneous emission postulates or to an external reservoir, without an information-theoreticaccounting of the discarded degrees of freedom. Building on MetaTime Modelo 3, where theStandard Model is formulated as a boundary open effective field theory (open-EFT) with a causal nonMarkovian influence functional characterized by a running latency ΓL(µ), we propose a mechanisticreinterpretation: an excited orbital is not merely “higher energy” but a state of higher algorithmiccomplexity—a larger bulk entanglement wedge footprint required to stabilize its boundary geometryagainst vacuum noise. Orbital relaxation is a compression event that erases a definite informationbudget ∆I into the traced-out bath. By Landauer’s principle, erasing ∆I bits must dissipate energyE ≥ kBTeff ln 2 ∆I. We identify the emitted photon as this mandatory Landauer export and treat itsfrequency ω as the bath’s erasure clock rate, yielding the exchange relation Eγ ≃ ℏω ≃ kBTeff ln 2 ∆I.The Planck relation thus emerges as an informational exchange rate: Planck’s constant is the “priceof a bit” evaluated at the vacuum’s effective erasure temperature. For the hydrogen Lyman-αtransition 2p → 1s in free vacuum, defining ∆I via a Jensen–Shannon information metric on orbitalprobability densities gives ∆I2p→1s = 0.64079 bits and implies an effective erasure temperatureTeff ≃ 2.66 × 105 K. We outline falsifiable extensions in which Teff and ΓL become environmentallytunable (cavity QED, dense media), producing correlated deviations in line shapes and relaxationpathways beyond standard QED vacuum fluctuations.
We explore timekeeping through the lens of Landauer's principle of bit erasure, where each erasure event produces exactly ln(2) bits of entropy. We reformulate the entropy-time connection as dt = dS/k, where k = R ln(2) is the entropy production rate determined by the erasure rate R. We introduce a dimensionless coupling constant alpha = k t_P, where t_P is the Planck time. At the Planck frequency limit, this yields alpha = ln(2) approximately 0.693. We note a numerical coincidence with loop quantum gravity: the Immirzi parameter, recently derived from Landauer's principle, is gamma = ln(2)/(pi sqrt(3)). Both expressions contain ln(2), though whether this indicates a fundamental connection remains an open question. We present new experimental results from IBM Quantum hardware (ibm_torino), testing a proxy for our temperature-independence prediction. Using the reset gate as a Landauer erasure operation, we measure reset fidelity across different initial states parametrized by angle theta. We find a coefficient of variation CV = 0.31%, indicating that reset performance is largely independent of initial state. Additionally, Ramsey interferometry experiments show that Landauer erasure destroys quantum coherence (visibility drops from 98.5% to 4.7%), consistent with irreversible entropy production. Two-qubit experiments demonstrate entropy transfer from system to reservoir. While these results are consistent with our framework, we emphasize that they do not constitute direct verification of the temperature-independence prediction, which requires controlled temperature variation in trapped-ion or similar systems.
We develop an effective field theory of irreversible information flow as an emergent dissipativescalar ϕ(x) in the Schwinger–Keldysh nonequilibrium class with dynamical KMS symmetry. Theelementary excitation of ϕ, named the infoton, is identified as a generalized information quantumwhose local rest energy is the Landauer cost kBTloc ln 2 and whose existence in classical, quantum,and quantum-gravitational substrates unifies bits, qubits, qudits, and Bekenstein “gravity bits” asembeddings of a single emergent quasiparticle. Two further generalisations are developed: alongthe modality axis introduced by Zadeh’s generalized theory of uncertainty, the infoton becomes ag-ton – a modality-indexed excitation of a g-information field Φr(x) – whose rest energy kBTlocB(r)extends the Landauer bound to possibilistic, fuzzy, evidential, and granular uncertainty calculi; alongthe operational-theoretic axis captured by generalized probabilistic theories and effect algebras, theconstruction culminates in an Ω-ton that subsumes both the modality and substrate axes under a singleoperational specification O = (Ω, E,K). Two additional axes are introduced as orthogonal extensions:a Wilsonian scale axis L that resolves the infoton tower from coarse-grained molecular dynamicsto parton, hypothetical preonic, and ultimately Planck-cell sub-particle resolutions while preservingthe universal Landauer floor; and a supersymmetric axis σ that pairs the bosonic infoton with afermionic infotino into an irreducible supermultiplet excitation, the super-infoton or Σ-ton, whoserest energy is sector-independent in unbroken supersymmetry. We verify the internal consistency ofthe foundational construction through a Schwinger–Keldysh lattice integrator that reproduces thefluctuation–dissipation relation, saturates the Landauer bound in single-bit erasure, and recoversstochastic-entropy-production positivity with a Crooks fluctuation-theorem slope of unity. The infotonhierarchy developed here is the formal scaffolding on which the companion paper [Sep26] buildstwo specific applications: a falsification framework for temperature-locked photon lines from e+e−annihilation, and a field theory of statistical learning.
I formalize the energy–information invariant Ñt for superconducting qubits in circuit QED (cQED) and show how it can serve as a practical, measurable criterion for operation near Landauer efficiency. The central idea is that stable coherence emerges when the energy cost per acquired bit approaches the Landauer bound; not because dissipation vanishes, but because it is minimized relative to information gain. (i) I define the information rate via the Shannon–Hartley capacity with explicit discussion of quantum limits (Holevo bound); (ii) I establish a reference plane for power P and rigorously define Tₑff either as the noise temperature of the readout chain or via cavity photon occupancy; and (iii) I clarify that İ in the denominator of Ñt must approximate the maximally achievable rate for the given SNR and bandwidth, without penalizing software postprocessing. With these specifications, the hypothesis is: stable coherence is achieved in the asymptotic limit Ñt → 1.
Landauer's principle provides a fundamental lower bound for energy dissipation occurring with information erasure in the quantum regime. While most studies have related the entropy reduction incorporated with the erasure to the lower bound (entropic bound), recent efforts have also provided another lower bound associated with the thermal fluctuation of the dissipated energy (thermodynamic bound). The coexistence of the two bounds has stimulated comparative studies of their properties; however, these studies were performed for systems where the time-evolution of diagonal (population) and off-diagonal (coherence) elements of the density matrix are decoupled. In this paper, we aimed to broaden the comparative study to include the influence of quantum coherence induced by the tilted system-reservoir interaction direction. By examining their dependence on the initial state of the information-bearing system, we find that the following properties of the bounds are generically held regardless of whether the influence of the coherence is present or not: the entropic bound serves as the tighter bound for a sufficiently mixed initial state, while the thermodynamic bound is tighter when the purity of the initial state is sufficiently high. The exception is the case where the system dynamics involve only phase relaxation; in this case, the two bounds coincide when the initial coherence is zero; otherwise, the thermodynamic bound serves the tighter bound. We also find the quantum information erasure inevitably accompanies constant energy dissipation caused by the creation of system-reservoir correlation, which may cause an additional source of energetic cost for the erasure.
The Landauer's principle, a cornerstone of information thermodynamics, provides a fundamental lower bound on the energetic cost of information erasure in terms of the information content change. However, its traditional formulation is largely confined to systems exchanging solely energy with an ideal thermal bath. In this work, we derive general information-cost trade-off relations that go beyond the scope of Landauer's principle by developing a thermodynamic inference approach based on the maximum entropy principle. These relations require only information about the system and are applicable to complex quantum scenarios involving multiple conserved charges and non-thermal environments. Specifically, we present two key results: (i) In scenarios where only the mean values of observables are accessible, we derive an information-content-informed upper bound on the thermodynamic cost which complements an existing generalized Landauer lower bound. (ii) When second-order fluctuations can also be measured, we obtain an information-content-informed lower bound on the change in variances of observables, thereby extending the Landauer's principle to constrain higher-order fluctuation costs. We numerically validate our information-cost trade-off relations using a coupled-qubit system exchanging energy and excitations, a driven qubit implementing an information erasure process, and a driven double quantum dot system that can operate as an inelastic heat engine. Our results underscore the broad utility of maximum-entropy inference in constraining thermodynamic costs for generic finite-time quantum processes, with direct relevance to quantum information processing and quantum thermodynamic applications.
Landauer's erasure principle, which is one of the defining elements of modern information theory, states the minimum work required to erase 1 bit of information is kT ln(2), where T is the temperature of a thermal reservoir and k is Boltzmann's constant [1]. This principle arises from the maximisation of the entropy of the whole system (memory bit plus thermal reservoir) subject to energy conservation. In this talk we explore a different kind of statistical mechanics based on more general constraints other than energy conservation. Such systems have the potential to provide new mechanisms for erasing information, initialising the state of quantum systems and providing novel "heat" engines. We consider a gas of spin-1/2 systems (e.g. energy degenerate two-state atoms) which comes to equilibrium via angular momentum conserving interactions (e.g. elastic collisions). We model the gas as a canonical ensemble of spin particles constrained by the conservation of angular momentum. The gas acts as a spin reservoir whose macrostate is characterised by the total (fixed) average angular momentum of the gas. Our 1 bit memory device is represented by one spin-1/2 particle in an arbitrary mixed state. The state of the memory is erased by performing controlled operations on the memory particle and ancillary spin-1/2 particles and letting the memory and ancilla particles come to equilibrium with the spin reservoir. The cost of erasing 1 bit of memory is shown to be the angular momentum expended in the controlled operations. In principle there is no energy cost. We then apply this erasure mechanism to the Maxwell's demon problem. Imagine the demon is using the hot molecules of a thermal gas to produce mechanical work and we want to erase the demon's memory. If another thermal reservoir is used for the erasure, the associated energy cost will be greater than the mechanical work extracted by the demon [2]. However, we can avoid this energy cost by using the spin-reservoir erasure mechanism. In principle, all the heat can be extracted from the thermal reservoir as mechanical work for zero energy cost. The second law of thermodynamics and energy conservation are not violated by this process. The cost is in terms of angular momentum expended and an increase in the entropy of the spin reservoir. Moreover, the entropy of the whole system is increased in the process. [1] R. Landauer, IBM J. Res. Lett., 67 661 (1961). [2] C.H. Bennett, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 905 (1982).