Breakdown of adiabatic invariance and thermodynamics of information

• Grant number: 17/23487-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2018
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - General Physics
• Principal Investigator: Marcus Vinicius Segantini Bonança
• Grantee: Otavio Luiz Canton
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In 19th century, Maxwell formulated a thought experiment in which a being would violate the second law of thermodynamics using the information gathered about the microscopic dynamics of a given system. These feedback processes have become a topic of intense scientific research in the last twenty years giving rise for instance to generalized versions of second law. In 1929, an important reformulation of Maxwell's original idea was made by Szilard. Nowadays known as Szilard engines, this version of Maxwell's demon allows for clearer analysis of the role played by information in thermodynamics. Such engines are able to extracted energy from a single heat bath along a cyclic process using information about the system. Although there is no microscopic "proof" of the second law so far, two properties of Hamiltonian dynamics have been used to show the impossibility of energy extraction from a single heat bath: Liouville's theorem and the adiabatic invariance of the phase space volume enclosed by a surface of constant energy. In the present project, we want to investigate the role played by the adiabatic invariance in the Szilard engine. In particular, we want to focus on microcanonical Szilard engine, where the energy is the quantity measured by the demon to do feedback. Our main goal is to understand the breakdown of adiabatic invariance in one-degree of freedom systems that work as models of Szilard engines. (AU)