Probabilities for informational free lunches in stochastic thermodynamics

Abstract

By considering an explicit nonequilibrium model, we analyze the statistics of the irreversible work, w irr, and the irreversible entropy production, Δ i s, within the stochastic energetics framework. Restating the second law of thermodynamics as a function of w irr, we introduce the explicit probability of violating the canonical form of that second law for a different set of parameters and initial conditions of the model. Moreover, we study the irreversible entropy production along the same lines, since it can be cast as a generalization of the irreversible work. From an informational perspective, our result allows one to quantify the probability of deleting information without performing work, contrarily to the Landauer’s principle, which we classify as an informational free lunch. We chose for the initial conditions cases of low information content (equilibrium) and high information content (delta distributed).