Aubin Archambault, Caroline Crauste-Thibierge, Alberto Imparato, Christopher Jarzynski, Sergio Ciliberto and Ludovic Bellon, submitted to Phy. Rev. Lett.
arXiv: 2407.17414
We investigate the thermodynamic properties of an information engine that extracts work from thermal fluctuations, using a mechanical cantilever submitted to electrostatic feedback control. The cantilever’s position is continuously measured, and feedback is triggered by the first passage of the system across a fixed threshold. The information ∆I associated with the feedback is based on the first-passage-time distribution. In this setting, we derive and experimentally verify two distinct fluctuation theorems that involve ∆I and give a tight bound on the work produced by the engine. Our results extend beyond the specific application to our experiment: we develop a general framework for obtaining fluctuation theorems and work bounds, formulated in terms of probability distributions of protocols rather than underlying measurement outcomes.