The minimal work cost of information processing

Philippe Faist (), Frédéric Dupuis, Jonathan Oppenheim and Renato Renner
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Philippe Faist: Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich
Frédéric Dupuis: Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich
Jonathan Oppenheim: University College of London
Renato Renner: Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Irreversible information processing cannot be carried out without some inevitable thermodynamical work cost. This fundamental restriction, known as Landauer’s principle, is increasingly relevant today, as the energy dissipation of computing devices impedes the development of their performance. Here we determine the minimal work required to carry out any logical process, for instance a computation. It is given by the entropy of the discarded information conditional to the output of the computation. Our formula takes precisely into account the statistically fluctuating work requirement of the logical process. It enables the explicit calculation of practical scenarios, such as computational circuits or quantum measurements. On the conceptual level, our result gives a precise and operational connection between thermodynamic and information entropy, and explains the emergence of the entropy state function in macroscopic thermodynamics.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8669

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