A many-particle bosonic quantum Maxwell demon

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental realization of a quantum Maxwell demon with many-particle bosonic systems, demonstrating enhanced energy extraction due to quantum statistics and measurement-based feedback.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup with photonic beams to explore quantum thermodynamics and the role of bosonic statistics in energy extraction.

Findings

Single-photon measurements increase energy faster than fluctuations.

Bosonic statistics enhance energy output beyond classical limits.

The demon's thermodynamics are analyzed using information theory.

Abstract

Energy extraction from a measured quantum system is a cornerstone of information thermodynamics as illustrated by Maxwell's demon. The nonequilibrium physics of many-particle systems is additionally strongly influenced by quantum statistics. We here report the first experimental realization of a quantum demon in a many-particle photonic setup made of two identical thermal light beams. We show that single-photon measurements combined with feedforward operation may deterministically increase the mean energy of one beam faster than energy fluctuations, thus improving the thermodynamic stability of the device. We moreover demonstrate that bosonic statistics can enhance the energy output above the classical limit, and further analyze the counterintuitive thermodynamics of the demon using an information-theoretic approach. Our results underscore the pivotal role of many-particle statistics for enhanced energy extraction in quantum thermodynamics.