Quantum amplification, relic gravitons and Landauer's conjecture

TL;DR

This paper explores how quantum amplification affects entropy and heat flow, deriving bounds on relic gravitons and inflation duration based on Landauer's principle and quantum thermodynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel connection between quantum amplification, entropy growth, and relic gravitons, establishing new bounds on early universe conditions.

Findings

Heat flow restricts entropy increase during quantum amplification.

Bounds on initial thermal gravitons are derived.

Limits on the total duration of inflation are established.

Abstract

According to the microscopic formulation of Landauer's principle, when information is deleted the Von Neumann entropy of the system gets reduced with a corresponding energy cost. Although within the same perspective the growth of the entropy should remain unconstrained we show that during quantum amplification the heat flow does restrict the increase of the Von Neumann entropy. When applied to the case of relic gravitons (with frequencies between the aHz region and the THz domain) the bounds obtained here set a limit on initial thermal gravitons and on the total duration of inflation.