The cost of information erasure in atomic and spin systems

TL;DRAbstract

Landauer's erasure principle, which is one of the defining elements of modern information theory, states the minimum work required to erase 1 bit of information is kT ln(2), where T is the temperature of a thermal reservoir and k is Boltzmann's constant [1]. This principle arises from the maximisation of the entropy of the whole system (memory bit plus thermal reservoir) subject to energy conservation. In this talk we explore a different kind of statistical mechanics based on more general constraints other than energy conservation. Such systems have the potential to provide new mechanisms for erasing information, initialising the state of quantum systems and providing novel "heat" engines.\n\nWe consider a gas of spin-1/2 systems (e.g. energy degenerate two-state atoms) which comes to equilibrium via angular momentum conserving interactions (e.g. elastic collisions). We model the gas as a canonical ensemble of spin particles constrained by the conservation of angular momentum. The gas

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