Minimal End-to-end Thermodynamic Costs of Communication Channels

Tune in for the live stream on YouTube.

Abstract: The thermodynamic cost of communication is a major factor in the total thermodynamic cost of real-world computers, both biological (e.g., the brain) and digital. However, little is known about the fundamental features of this cost. Here, we analyze how the channel information capacity - a property of communication systems that is fundamental to modern information theory - is related to the entropy production (EP) in a communication channel. We focus on the specific case of the EP of a linear error-correcting code, in which an input message is encoded using the Hamming code; transmitted through a noisy channel; and then recovered with an associated Syndrome decoder.