Dissipation reduction and information-to-measurement conversion in DNA pulling experiments with feedback protocols

Abstract

Information-to-energy conversion with feedback measurement stands as one of the most intriguing aspects of the thermodynamics of information in the nanoscale. To date, experiments have focused on feedback protocols for work extraction. Here we address the novel case of dissipation reduction in non-equilibrium systems with feedback. We perform pulling experiments on DNA hairpins with optical tweezers, with a general feedback protocol based on multiple measurements that includes either discrete-time or continuous-time feedback. While feedback can reduce dissipation, it remains unanswered whether it also improves free energy determination (information-to-measurement conversion). We define thermodynamic information {\Upsilon} as the natural logarithm of the feedback efficacy, a quantitative measure of the efficiency of information-to-energy and information-to-measurement conversion in feedback protocols. We find that discrete and continuous-time feedback reduces dissipation by roughly kBT{\Upsilon} without improvement in free energy determination. Remarkably, a feedback strategy (defined as a correlated sequence of feedback protocols) further reduces dissipation, enhancing information-to-measurement efficiency. Our study underlines the role of temporal correlations to develop feedback strategies for efficient information-to-energy conversion in small systems.