Multipartite information flow for multiple Maxwell demons

TL;DR

This paper extends thermodynamic formalism to multipartite systems, introducing a new measure for information exchange and illustrating it with a model of competing Maxwell demons.

Contribution

It generalizes the thermodynamic framework for information flow from bipartite to multipartite systems, including a refined measure and practical illustration.

Findings

Identified a natural thermodynamic quantity for information exchange among multiple systems.

Extended formalism from bipartite to multipartite systems.

Demonstrated the concepts with a model of two competing Maxwell demons.

Abstract

The second law of thermodynamics dictates the fundamental limits to the amount of energy and information that can be exchanged between physical systems. In this work, we extend a thermodynamic formalism describing this flow of energy and information developed for a pair of bipartite systems to many multipartite systems. We identify a natural thermodynamic quantity that describes the information exchanged among these systems. We then introduce and discuss a refined version. Our results are illustrated with a model of two, competing Maxwell demons.