From Quantum Mechanics Postulate to Landauer's Erasure Principle
Qing-yu Cai · arXiv (Cornell University) · 2004
Landauer argues 1 that since erasure is a logical function that does not have a single-valued inverse it must be associated with physical irreversibility and therefore require heat dissipation. It is widely accepted that quantum mechanics is our most accurate description of our world. Can Landauer’s erasure principle be deduced by the quantum mechanics if we accept the completeness of quantum theory? It is possible! In microworld, information erasure is an irreversible physics process. The final state of environment is almost completely determined by the initial state of system. In general, a classical limitation of erasure one bit will give heat dissipation of order kBT in environment, corresponding with entropy of environment increasing, of order k ln 2.