Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 17: Statistical Physics far from Thermal Equilibrium

DY 17.5: Vortrag

Dienstag, 8. März 2016, 11:00–11:15, H48

On the difference between information and heat reservoirs — •Johannes Hoppenau and Andreas Engel — Universität Oldenburg, Germany

In classical thermodynamics, there are two kinds of reservoirs: heat and work reservoirs. While the work reservoirs allow for an exchange of energy without a change of their entropy, for heat reservoirs at temperature T the exchange of the energy Q comes along with a change Q / T of the entropy. Hence, a work reservoir can be seen as a heat reservoir at infinite temperature.

With the advent of stochastic thermodynamics, during the past years the concept of Maxwell’s demons has regained increased interest. An integral part of all Maxwell’s demons is a memory or information reservoir. A key characteristic of an information reservoir is that its entropy can be increased without the cost of energy exchange. Hence, an obvious question to ask is, if an information reservoir can be seen as a heat bath at zero temperature. This however is not that easily possible since correlation play an essential role in memory, that are not present in heat reservoirs.

To illustrate this difference, we present a model of a tape that stores information and has an intrinsic temperature and derive general bounds of efficiency for engines in contact with this tape. Depending on the perspective, this tape is an imperfect information reservoir or an imperfect heat reservoir and engines acting on this tape are Maxwell’s demons or heat engines.