Landauer principle and general relativity

Abstract

We endeavour to illustrate the physical relevance of the Landauer principle applying it to different important issues concerning the theory of gravitation. We shall first analyze, in the context of general relativity, the consequences derived from the fact, implied by Landauer principle, that information has mass. Next, we shall analyze the role played by the Landauer principle in order to understand why different congruences of observers provide very different physical descriptions of the same space-time. Finally, we shall apply the Landauer principle to the problem of gravitational radiation. We shall see that the fact that gravitational radiation is an irreversible process entailing dissipation, is a straightforward consequence of the Landauer principle and of the fact that gravitational radiation conveys information. An expression measuring the part of radiated energy that corresponds to the radiated information and an expression defining the total number of bits erased in that process, shall be obtained, as well as an explicit expression linking the latter to the Bondi news function.