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arXiv · 2609.22826

The Filtering Demon: Beyond Standard Thermodynamic Bounds and Harnessing Measurement Error and Quantum Friction

Yang Xiao·Jin Wang
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Abstract

Standard stochastic heat engines operate blindly, enforcing work extraction protocols indiscriminately on microstates, and consequently suppressing work output, stability, efficiency. To overcome this, we propose an Otto information engine (OIE) that employs a Maxwell's demon to filter out detrimental stochastic trajectories, and demonstrate that the OIE can provide enhanced work output and stability compared to the corresponding standard Otto engine. Remarkably, even after accounting for the energetic costs of the demon, the OIE efficiency surpasses both the standard Otto limit and Carnot bound. Furthermore, by applying the fluctuation theorem of information dissipation, we derive upper and lower bounds on efficiency, confirming that our results adhere to the second law of thermodynamics. Finally, and counterintuitively, measurement errors and quantum inner friction, traditionally considered deleterious, can be harnessed as resources, which improves robustness and enables us to ignore the adiabatic strokes time.

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Yang Xiao, Jin Wang. 2026-09-19. The Filtering Demon: Beyond Standard Thermodynamic Bounds and Harnessing Measurement Error and Quantum Friction. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22826

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