Dynamical randomness, information, and Landauer's principle

TL;DR

This paper links Landauer's principle to nonequilibrium thermodynamics by demonstrating that erasing digital information produces entropy proportional to the information content, emphasizing the role of dynamical randomness and time asymmetry.

Contribution

It generalizes Landauer's principle by connecting information erasure to entropy production through dynamical randomness and time asymmetry in nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

Findings

Entropy produced per erased bit is proportional to Shannon's information I.

Landauer's principle is interpreted through the lens of time asymmetry and dynamical randomness.

The dissipation rate during information erasure is quantified as k_B I.

Abstract

New concepts from nonequilibrium thermodynamics are used to show that Landauer's principle can be understood in terms of time asymmetry in the dynamical randomness generated by the physical process of the erasure of digital information. In this way, Landauer's principle is generalized, showing that the dissipation associated with the erasure of a sequence of bits produces entropy at the rate $k_{{\rm B}}I$ per erased bit, where $I$ is Shannon's information per bit.