Information and thermodynamics: fast and precise approach to Landauer's bound in an underdamped micro-mechanical oscillator

TL;DR

This study experimentally and theoretically investigates the Landauer bound in an underdamped micro-mechanical oscillator, demonstrating that the bound can be approached with high precision in short protocols by accounting for inertia effects.

Contribution

It provides a fast and precise method to approach Landauer's bound in an underdamped system, highlighting the role of inertia and feedback control in thermodynamic limits.

Findings

Landauer bound reached with 1% uncertainty

Protocols as short as 100 ms are sufficient

Inertia effects are crucial in underdamped systems

Abstract

The Landauer principle states that at least $k_B T \ln 2$ of energy is required to erase a 1-bit memory, with $k_B T$ the thermal energy of the system. We study the effects of inertia on this bound using as one-bit memory an underdamped micro-mechanical oscillator confined in a double-well potential created by a feedback loop. The potential barrier is precisely tunable in the few $k_B T$ range. We measure, within the stochastic thermodynamic framework, the work and the heat of the erasure protocol. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that, in this underdamped system, the Landauer bound is reached with a 1 % uncertainty, with protocols as short as 100 ms.