{"paper":{"title":"A neural-network Maxwell's demon learns cold damping for work extraction","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cond-mat.stat-mech","authors_text":"Ludovic Bellon, Sergio Ciliberto, Stephen Whitelam","submitted_at":"2026-07-07T21:35:47Z","abstract_excerpt":"We train a neural-network Maxwell's demon to extract work from a model of an underdamped micromechanical cantilever subject to thermal noise. The demon, which periodically adjusts the position of a harmonic trap, is trained to maximize the power extracted under steady-state operation. When the demon is given the cantilever position and trap position as inputs it learns a refined version of an existing hand-designed protocol, yielding a substantial improvement in performance. When the demon receives the oscillator velocity as input it discovers a qualitatively different strategy that extracts s"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2607.06822","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2607.06822/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}