Interacting Multi-particle Classical Szilard Engine

Abstract: Szilard engine(SZE) is one of the best example of how information can be used to extract work from a system. Initially, the working substance of SZE was considered to be a single particle. Later on, researchers has extended the studies of SZE to multi-particle systems and even to quantum regime. Here we present a detailed study of classical SZE consisting of $N$ particles with inter-particle interactions, i.e., the working substance is a low density non-ideal gas and compare the work extraction with respect to SZE with non-interacting multi particle system as working substance. We have considered two cases of interactions namely: (i) hard core interactions and (ii) square well interaction. Our study reveals that work extraction is less when more particles are interacting through hard core interactions. More work is extracted when the particles are interacting via square well interaction. Another important result for the second case is that as we increase the particle number the work extraction becomes independent of the initial position of the partition, as opposed to the first case. Work extraction depends crucially on the initial position of the partition. More work can be extracted with larger number of particles when partition is inserted at positions near the boundary walls.