High-precision test of Landauer's principle in a feedback trap

TL;DR

This study experimentally verifies Landauer's principle by demonstrating that erasing information in a colloidal particle system requires work at least equal to kT ln 2, confirming theoretical predictions with high precision.

Contribution

The paper provides a high-precision experimental test of Landauer's principle using a feedback trap to manipulate a colloidal particle, confirming the minimal work required for information erasure.

Findings

Erasure requires work at least kT ln 2

Work can be below the limit in individual cycles but averages comply with Landauer's bound

Experimental results align with the Jarzynski equality

Abstract

We confirm Landauer's 1961 hypothesis that reducing the number of possible macroscopic states in a system by a factor of two requires work of at least kT ln 2. Our experiment uses a colloidal particle in a time-dependent, virtual potential created by a feedback trap to implement Landauer's erasure operation. In a control experiment, similar manipulations that do not reduce the number of system states can be done reversibly. Erasing information thus requires work. In individual cycles, the work to erase can be below the Landauer limit, consistent with the Jarzynski equality.