Experimental nonequilibrium memory erasure beyond Landauer's bound

Author(s)
Mario A. Ciampini, Tobias Wenzl, Michael Konopik, Gregor Thalhammer, Markus Aspelmeyer, Eric Lutz, Nikolai Kiesel
Abstract

The clean world of digital information is based on noisy physical devices. Landauer's principle provides a deep connection between information processing and the underlying thermodynamics by setting a lower limit on the energy consumption and heat production of logically irreversible transformations. While Landauer's original formulation assumes equilibrium, real devices often do operate far from equilibrium. We show experimentally that the nonequilibrium character of a memory state enables full erasure with reduced power consumption as well as negative heat production. We implement the optimized erasure protocols in an optomechanical two-state memory. To this end, we introduce dynamical shaping of nonlinear potential landscapes as a powerful tool for levitodynamics as well as the investigation of far-from-equilibrium processes.

Organisation(s)
Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information
No. of pages
6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2107.04429
Publication date
07-2021
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103008 Experimental physics, 103029 Statistical physics
Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/969cb50e-ceb9-4a4d-a5e9-d7640c5a543d