Generalized Zurek's bound on the cost of an individual classical or quantum computation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Kolchinsky, Artemy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Kolchinsky, Artemy
author_facet Kolchinsky, Artemy
contents We consider the minimal thermodynamic cost of an individual computation, where a single input $x$ is mapped to a single output $y$. In prior work, Zurek proposed that this cost was given by $K(x\vert y)$, the conditional Kolmogorov complexity of $x$ given $y$ (up to an additive constant which does not depend on $x$ or $y$). However, this result was derived from an informal argument, applied only to deterministic computations, and had an arbitrary dependence on the choice of protocol (via the additive constant). Here we use stochastic thermodynamics to derive a generalized version of Zurek's bound from a rigorous Hamiltonian formulation. Our bound applies to all quantum and classical processes, whether noisy or deterministic, and it explicitly captures the dependence on the protocol. We show that $K(x\vert y)$ is a minimal cost of mapping $x$ to $y$ that must be paid using some combination of heat, noise, and protocol complexity, implying a tradeoff between these three resources. Our result is a kind of "algorithmic fluctuation theorem" with implications for the relationship between the Second Law and the Physical Church-Turing thesis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2301_06838
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generalized Zurek's bound on the cost of an individual classical or quantum computation
Kolchinsky, Artemy
Statistical Mechanics
Information Theory
Quantum Physics
We consider the minimal thermodynamic cost of an individual computation, where a single input $x$ is mapped to a single output $y$. In prior work, Zurek proposed that this cost was given by $K(x\vert y)$, the conditional Kolmogorov complexity of $x$ given $y$ (up to an additive constant which does not depend on $x$ or $y$). However, this result was derived from an informal argument, applied only to deterministic computations, and had an arbitrary dependence on the choice of protocol (via the additive constant). Here we use stochastic thermodynamics to derive a generalized version of Zurek's bound from a rigorous Hamiltonian formulation. Our bound applies to all quantum and classical processes, whether noisy or deterministic, and it explicitly captures the dependence on the protocol. We show that $K(x\vert y)$ is a minimal cost of mapping $x$ to $y$ that must be paid using some combination of heat, noise, and protocol complexity, implying a tradeoff between these three resources. Our result is a kind of "algorithmic fluctuation theorem" with implications for the relationship between the Second Law and the Physical Church-Turing thesis.
title Generalized Zurek's bound on the cost of an individual classical or quantum computation
topic Statistical Mechanics
Information Theory
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.06838