Absolute Irreversibility in Information Thermodynamics

Abstract: Nonequilibrium equalities have attracted considerable interest in the context of statistical mechanics and information thermodynamics. What is remarkable about nonequilibrium equalities is that they apply to rather general nonequilibrium situations beyond the linear response regime. However, nonequilibrium equalities are known to be inapplicable to some important situations. In this thesis, we introduce a concept of absolute irreversibility as a new class of irreversibility that encompasses the entire range of those irreversible situations to which the conventional nonequilibrium equalities are inapplicable. In mathematical terms, absolute irreversibility corresponds to the singular part of probability measure and can be separated from the ordinary irreversible part by Lebesgue's decomposition theorem in measure theory. This theorem guarantees the uniqueness of the decomposition of probability measure into singular and nonsingular parts, which enables us to give a well-defined mathematical and physical meaning to absolute irreversibility. Consequently, we derive a new type of nonequilibrium equalities in the presence of absolute irreversibility. Inequalities derived from our nonequilibrium equalities give stronger restrictions on the entropy production during nonequilibrium processes than the conventional second-law like inequalities. Moreover, we present a new resolution of Gibbs' paradox from the viewpoint of absolute irreversibility. This resolution applies to a classical mesoscopic regime, where two prevailing resolutions of Gibbs' paradox break down.