Abstract
We confirm Landauer’s 1961 hypothesis that reducing the number of possible macroscopic states in a system by a factor of 2 requires work of at least . Our experiment uses a colloidal particle in a time-dependent, virtual potential created by a feedback trap to implement Landauer’s erasure operation. In a control experiment, similar manipulations that do not reduce the number of system states can be done reversibly. Erasing information thus requires work. In individual cycles, the work to erase can be below the Landauer limit, consistent with the Jarzynski equality.
- Received 15 August 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.190601
© 2014 American Physical Society