It was recently shown experimentally that resetting a single bit of information can be achieved at a work cost lower than Landauer's limit: k_B T ln(2), where T is the temperature of the environment [1]. This was achieved by generating a non-equilibrium steady state for the memory, itself encoded in the position of a particle jumping stochastically between the two wells of a double-well potential. When this double well potential is made of two adjacent harmonic potentials, the jump rates can be analytically obtained and the entropy production of each trajectory estimated. This allows for the quantification of the total entropy production generated during the erasure protocol.

In this seminar, I explain how this can be done and show experimental plots and preliminary results obtained in the case of an hysteresis cycle in the memory state.
I will then present new analytical results regarding gates performed on a massive flying particle.



[1] Stochastic thermodynamics : driving of micro-oscillators applied to the study and the optimization of information processing by Salambô Dago, Chapter 5, https://theses.hal.science/tel-03771837v1/document