Reorganization of Thermodynamics after the Izumi Effect:\\ From Temporal-Fluctuation-Based Irreversibility to Structural Thermodynamics

We revisit the foundations of information thermodynamics and propose a structural extension motivated by the recently identified Izumi effect. Conventional information thermodynamics relies essentially on temporal fluctuations: work extraction becomes possible only by selectively responding to stochastic time evolution, and such selectivity necessarily requires noise-resilient information processing. Landauer’s principle, W≥kBTln⁡2W k₁T 2W≥kBTln2, therefore imposes a fundamental upper bound on the net extractable work in any mechanism that depends on temporal fluctuation rectification, including Maxwell’s demon, the Szilard engine, and Feynman’s ratchet. In contrast, the Izumi effect relies not on temporal fluctuations but on structural statistical asymmetry: when a dilute gas interacts with two solids that impose different adsorption potentials and different quantum-statistical constraints (e. g. , BE-like surface phonon statistics vs MB gas statistics), the steady-state energy distributions of the gas can become spatially asymmetric even after macroscopic equilibration. This leads to a non-isothermal equilibrium TA∗≠TB∗TA^* TB^*TA∗=TB∗ without sustained heat flux, a phenomenon forbidden in classical Boltzmann systems but permitted at the boundary between two different statistical manifolds. We formulate a minimal toy model demonstrating that such a structural steady state can repeatedly recharge a temperature difference, which may then be converted into useful work by a conventional heat engine without requiring information storage or temporal discrimination. This suggests that structural constraints—not temporal stochasticity—can generate persistent thermodynamic biases beyond the kBTln⁡2k₁T 2kBTln2 limitation. Finally, we examine where the Izumi effect breaks the traditional chain CLT universality ⇒ temperature uniqueness ⇒ Zeroth Law, CLT universality \;\; temperature uniqueness \;\; Zeroth Law, CLT universality⇒temperature uniqueness⇒Zeroth Law, showing that the breakdown occurs at the level of distributional universality, not at the level of macroscopic thermodynamic laws. The results indicate that a revised thermodynamic framework is required when structural statistical asymmetry replaces temporal fluctuation as the source of thermodynamic directionality.