Entropy Cost of "Erasure" in Physically Irreversible Processes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the thermodynamic cost of erasure in physical systems is rooted in ontological uncertainty of incompatible observables, challenging traditional information-theoretic views and implying no real Maxwell's Demon exists.

Contribution

It introduces a physically grounded form of Landauer's Principle based on joint entropy and clarifies the distinction between logical and thermodynamic entropy.

Findings

Erasure cost is due to ontological uncertainty, not epistemic.

Logical erasure does not equate to thermodynamic entropy reduction.

No Maxwell's Demon can operate in real physical systems.

Abstract

A restricted form of Landauer's Principle, independent of computational considerations, is shown to hold for thermal systems by reference to the joint entropy associated with conjugate observables. It is shown that the source of the compensating entropy for irreversible physical processes is due to the ontological uncertainty attending values of such mutually incompatible observables, rather than due to epistemic uncertainty as traditionally assumed in the information-theoretic approach. In particular, it is explicitly shown that erasure of logical (epistemic) information via reset operations is not equivalent to erasure of thermodynamic entropy, so that the traditional, information-theoretic form of Landauer's Principle is not supported by the physics. A further implication of the analysis is that, in principle, there can be no Maxwell's Demon in the real world.