Using a Szilard engine to illustrate the validity of the modified Jarzynski equality in presence of measurement errors

TL;DR

This paper uses a Szilard engine model to demonstrate the validity of the modified Jarzynski equality under measurement errors and feedback, confirming theoretical predictions with a simple, illustrative example.

Contribution

It provides a clear, toy-model proof of the modified Jarzynski equality's validity in scenarios with measurement errors and feedback.

Findings

Modified Jarzynski equality holds with measurement errors

Feedback does not invalidate the modified equality

Toy model confirms theoretical predictions

Abstract

It has recently been shown that the Jarzynski equality gets modified, when there are experimental errors in computing work. This modified result also holds good in presence of feedback. In this work, we use a simple toy model, that of a Szilard engine, to prove these results both in the presence and in absence of feedback.