Erasure of a nonequilibrium memory beyond Landauer's bound using levitated optomechanics with spatio-temporal optical control

Landauer’s principle provides a deep connection between information processing and thermodynamics by setting a lower limit on the energy consumption and heat production of logically irreversible transformations. However, Landauer’s original formulation assumes that information is initially stored in an equilibrium state, whereas real devices often operate with out-of-equilibrium states. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that nonequilibrium memory states can provide a useful resource for fast information erasure below the equilibrium bounds by using an underdamped levitated optomechanical system. To that end, we introduce a versatile optical levitation scheme that enables fast and precise dynamical shaping of general potential landscapes. By harnessing the energy and entropy of an initial nonequilibrium two-state memory, we demonstrate reduced power consumption as well as negative heat production during erasure. Our findings significantly broaden the range of tools available in levitodynamics and suggest that the engineering of appropriate far-from-equilibrium memory states could pave the way for an approach to heat management.