Landauer's erasure principle in a squeezed thermal memory

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that using squeezed thermal states in a one-bit memory can exponentially lower the energy cost of erasure below the traditional Landauer bound, suggesting new avenues for energy-efficient computing.

Contribution

It introduces a minimalist mechanical model of a memory utilizing squeezed thermal states, showing how squeezing reduces the Landauer energy bound.

Findings

Landauer bound is exponentially lowered with increased squeezing.

Squeezed thermal states can naturally occur in pulse-driven electronic circuits.

Energy costs of erasure can be minimized using quantum squeezing techniques.

Abstract

Landauer's erasure principle states that the irreversible erasure of a one-bit memory, embedded in a thermal environment, is accompanied with a work input of at least $k_{\text{B}}T\ln2$. Fundamental to that principle is the assumption that the physical states representing the two possible logical states are close to thermal equilibrium. Here, we propose and theoretically analyze a minimalist mechanical model of a one-bit memory operating with squeezed thermal states. It is shown that the Landauer energy bound is exponentially lowered with increasing squeezing factor. Squeezed thermal states, which may naturally arise in digital electronic circuits operating in a pulse-driven fashion, thus can be exploited to reduce the fundamental energy costs of an erasure operation.