Dynamical Landauer principle: Thermodynamic criteria of transmitting classical information

TL;DR

This paper establishes a quantitative link between classical information transmission and energy transmission, revealing a dynamical version of Landauer's principle and providing thermodynamic insights into quantum communication capacities.

Contribution

It introduces bounds connecting classical information capacities with energy transmission, uncovering a dynamical Landauer's principle and extending thermodynamic interpretations to quantum information theory.

Findings

Transmitting n bits of classical information requires n×k_BT ln2 energy in the one-shot regime.

Uncovers a dynamical version of Landauer's principle linking information transmission and energy.

Provides thermodynamic interpretations for quantum channel capacities and strong converse properties.

Abstract

Transmitting energy and information are two essential aspects of nature. Recent findings suggest they are closely related, while a quantitative equivalence between them is still unknown. This thus motivates us to ask: Can information transmission tasks equal certain energy transmission tasks? We answer this question positively by bounding various one-shot classical capacities via different energy transmission tasks. Such bounds provide the physical implication that, in the one-shot regime, transmitting $n$ bits of classical information is equivalent to $n\times k_BT\ln2$ transmitted energy. Unexpectedly, these bounds further uncover a dynamical version of Landauer's principle, showing the strong link between "transmitting" (rather than "erasing") information and energy. Finally, in the asymptotic regime, our findings further provide thermodynamic meanings for Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland Theorem and a series of strong converse properties as well as no-go theorems.