Limits of Information Flow Between Classically Interacting Particles
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866917201831788544 |
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| author | Miller-Dickson, Miles Rose, Christopher |
| author_facet | Miller-Dickson, Miles Rose, Christopher |
| contents | Pinning down a precise understanding of information flow within physical interactions remains a central concern to fields like stochastic thermodynamics and quantum information science. In both spheres a careful accounting of bits (or qubits) enables a deeper understanding of the physical nature of information. In this work we propose a measure of information flow as a saddle-point solution of the mutual information. This approach places a lower bound on the channel capacity between a particle and an interacting environment. The measure is given by P/2E in nats/sec, with P the average power flux between the particle and its environment, and E the initial average energy of the particle, all computed in a frame where the particle has zero average momentum. We use a communication theory lens to suggest an associated channel analogy, in which this bound is interpreted as a signal-to-noise ratio. We find that this measure can also quantify early-time information flow for a particle interacting with a thermal bath. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_18652 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Limits of Information Flow Between Classically Interacting Particles Miller-Dickson, Miles Rose, Christopher Statistical Mechanics Pinning down a precise understanding of information flow within physical interactions remains a central concern to fields like stochastic thermodynamics and quantum information science. In both spheres a careful accounting of bits (or qubits) enables a deeper understanding of the physical nature of information. In this work we propose a measure of information flow as a saddle-point solution of the mutual information. This approach places a lower bound on the channel capacity between a particle and an interacting environment. The measure is given by P/2E in nats/sec, with P the average power flux between the particle and its environment, and E the initial average energy of the particle, all computed in a frame where the particle has zero average momentum. We use a communication theory lens to suggest an associated channel analogy, in which this bound is interpreted as a signal-to-noise ratio. We find that this measure can also quantify early-time information flow for a particle interacting with a thermal bath. |
| title | Limits of Information Flow Between Classically Interacting Particles |
| topic | Statistical Mechanics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.18652 |