The Jaynes Cummings model as an autonomous Maxwell demon

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the Jaynes-Cummings model as an autonomous Maxwell demon, demonstrating how a cavity can measure and cool a qubit by trading mutual information for thermodynamic work, revealing a transition in its behavior over time.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of the Jaynes-Cummings model as an autonomous Maxwell demon, highlighting its information-driven thermodynamic behavior and long-time measurement effects.

Findings

Cavity acts as an autonomous Maxwell demon.

Long-time dynamics involve measurement and purification.

Cavity trades mutual information for cooling power.

Abstract

We revisit the Jaynes-Cummings model as an autonomous thermodynamic machine, where a qubit is driven by a cavity containing initially a large coherent field. Our analysis reveals a transition between the expected behavior of ideal-work source of the cavity at short times, and a long-time dynamics where the cavity autonomously measures the qubit and exerts a result-dependent drive. This autonomous feedback then purifies the qubit irrespective of its initial state. We show that the cavity functions thermodynamically as an autonomous Maxwell demon, trading mutual information for cooling power.