A Maxwell Demon Model Connecting Information and Thermodynamics

In the past decades several theoretical Maxwell's demon models have been proposed to exhibit effects such as refrigerating, doing work at the cost of information, and some experiments have been carried out to realize these effects. We propose a model with a two-level demon, information represented by a sequence of bits, and two heat reservoirs. The reservoir that the demon is interacting with depends on the bit. When the temperature difference between the two heat reservoirs is large enough, the information can be erased. On the other hand, when the information is pure enough, heat transfer from one reservoir to the other can happen, resulting in the effect of refrigeration. Genuine examples of such a system are discussed.