Thermodynamic efficiency of communication channels

Abstract

We identify a broad class of communication channels that captures common physical constraints in both artificial and natural systems and derive bounds on their thermodynamic cost. We find that the entropy production per channel use is bounded from below by the input-output mutual information, and their ratio -mutual information divided by entropy production- defines the thermodynamic efficiency. Unlike previous studies of energy-constrained communication channels, our analysis shows that thermodynamic costs must be assigned not only to the input symbols themselves, but also to transitions between successive symbols. As a result, maximizing thermodynamic efficiency favors a biased input that switches only rarely, rather than the capacity-achieving input. For the binary symmetric channel, this preference emerges through a pitchfork bifurcation that spontaneously breaks the symmetry of the channel. A minimal model of cellular sensing exhibits the same phenomenon.