Bosonic statistics enhance Maxwell's demon in photonic experiment
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866912899009609728 |
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| author | Anguita, Malaquias Correa Marzban, Sara Braasch Jr., William F. Upadhyaya, Twesh Landi, Gabriel Halpern, Nicole Yunger Renema, Jelmer J. |
| author_facet | Anguita, Malaquias Correa Marzban, Sara Braasch Jr., William F. Upadhyaya, Twesh Landi, Gabriel Halpern, Nicole Yunger Renema, Jelmer J. |
| contents | Maxwell's demon elucidates the value of information in thermodynamics, using measurement and feedback: he evolves an equilibrated gas into a nonequilibrium state, from which one might extract work. The demon can evolve the system farther from equilibrium, on average, if the particles obey Bose-Einstein statistics than if they are distinguishable. We experimentally support this decade-and-a-half-old prediction by comparing indistinguishable with distinguishable photons. We use a fully programmable linear-optics platform, whose local photon statistics were shown recently to behave thermally. Our demon nondestructively measures the number of photons in a subset of the modes. Guided by the outcome, he conditionally interchanges the measured and unmeasured modes. This interchange creates a positive temperature difference between a mode in a particular subset and a mode in the other. The temperature difference is greater, on average, if the photons are indistinguishable. This result bolsters a long-standing prediction about the interplay among thermodynamics, information, and quantum particle statistics. Additionally, this work suggests a thermodynamic means of weakly validating boson-sampling platforms. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_11276 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Bosonic statistics enhance Maxwell's demon in photonic experiment Anguita, Malaquias Correa Marzban, Sara Braasch Jr., William F. Upadhyaya, Twesh Landi, Gabriel Halpern, Nicole Yunger Renema, Jelmer J. Quantum Physics Optics Maxwell's demon elucidates the value of information in thermodynamics, using measurement and feedback: he evolves an equilibrated gas into a nonequilibrium state, from which one might extract work. The demon can evolve the system farther from equilibrium, on average, if the particles obey Bose-Einstein statistics than if they are distinguishable. We experimentally support this decade-and-a-half-old prediction by comparing indistinguishable with distinguishable photons. We use a fully programmable linear-optics platform, whose local photon statistics were shown recently to behave thermally. Our demon nondestructively measures the number of photons in a subset of the modes. Guided by the outcome, he conditionally interchanges the measured and unmeasured modes. This interchange creates a positive temperature difference between a mode in a particular subset and a mode in the other. The temperature difference is greater, on average, if the photons are indistinguishable. This result bolsters a long-standing prediction about the interplay among thermodynamics, information, and quantum particle statistics. Additionally, this work suggests a thermodynamic means of weakly validating boson-sampling platforms. |
| title | Bosonic statistics enhance Maxwell's demon in photonic experiment |
| topic | Quantum Physics Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11276 |