Many-body Szilárd engine with giant number fluctuations
Omer Chor, Amir Sohachi, Rémi Goerlich, Eran Rosen, Saar Rahav, Yael Roichman
Abstract
Szil\'ard's information engine is a canonical example in the field of thermodynamics of information. We realize experimentally a macroscopic many-particle Szil\'ard engine that consists of active particles and use it to lift a mass against gravity. We show that the extractable work per cycle increases when the raised weight is changed more gradually during the process. Interestingly, we find that the ideal extractable work grows with the number of particles due to giant number fluctuations. This is in contrast to the calculated behavior of a similar engine operating on thermal particles.
Topics & Concepts
Lift (data mining)Heat engineWork (physics)Particle numberPhysicsMechanicsWork outputThermalStatistical physicsThermodynamicsComputer scienceVolume (thermodynamics)Data miningAdvanced Thermodynamics and Statistical MechanicsQuantum Electrodynamics and Casimir EffectQuantum Mechanics and Applications