Related papers: Equilibrium Constant as Solution to the Open Chemi…
We investigate a two-level system in resonant contact with a larger environment. The environment typically is in a canonical state with a given temperature initially. Depending on the precise spectral structure of the environment and the…
Experiments with trapped atomic gases have opened novel possibilities for studying the evolution of nonequilibrium finite quantum systems, which revived the necessity of reconsidering and developing the theory of such processes. This review…
Large time dynamics of reaction-diffusion systems modeling some irreversible reaction networks are investigated. Depending on initial masses, these networks possibly possess boundary equilibria, where some of the chemical concentrations are…
Continuum solvation methods can provide an accurate and inexpensive embedding of quantum simulations in liquid or complex dielectric environments. Notwithstanding a long history and manifold applications to isolated systems in open boundary…
The mathematical physics of mechanical systems in thermal equilibrium is a well studied, and relatively easy, subject, because the Gibbs distribution is in general an adequate guess for the equilibrium state. On the other hand, the…
We address the problem of understanding from first principles the conditions under which a quantum system equilibrates rapidly with respect to a concrete observable. On the one hand previously known general upper bounds on the time scales…
To the student of thermodynamics the most difficult subject is entropy. In this paper we examine the actual, practical application of entropy to two simple systems, the homogeneous slab with fixed boundary values of the temperature, and an…
We demonstrate the equilibration of isolated macroscopic quantum systems, prepared in non-equilibrium mixed states with significant population of many energy levels, and observed by instruments with a reasonably bound working range compared…
We treat the problem of the approach to thermal equilibrium by only resorting to quantum dynamics of an isolated macroscopic system. Inspired by the two important works in 2009 and in 1929, we have noted that a condition we call…
Using equilibrium fluctuations to understand the response of a physical system to an externally imposed perturbation is the basis for linear response theory, which is widely used to interpret experiments and shed light on microscopic…
The open-system dynamics of entanglement plays an important role in the assessment of the robustness of quantum information processes and also in the investigation of the classical limit of quantum mechanics. Here we show that, subjacent to…
We show that quantum mechanical entanglement can prevail even in noisy open quantum systems at high temperature and far from thermodynamical equilibrium, despite the deteriorating effect of decoherence. The system consists of a number N of…
We provide an extension of a recent approach to study non-equilibrium thermodynamics [Phys. Rev. E 81, 051130 (2010), to be denoted by I in this work] to inhomogeneous systems by considering the latter to be composed of quasi-independent…
Equilibrium statistical mechanics provides powerful tools to understand physics at the macroscale. Yet, the question remains how this can be justified based on a microscopic quantum description. Here, we extend the ideas of pure state…
Motivated by the possibility of electrochemical control of phase separation, a variational theory of thermodynamic stability is developed for driven reactive mixtures, based on a nonlinear generalization of the Cahn-Hilliard and Allen-Cahn…
We investigate a simplified model of two fully connected magnetic systems maintained at different temperatures by virtue of being connected to two independent thermal baths while simultaneously being inter-connected with each other. Using…
The trend to equilibrium for reaction-diffusion systems modelling chemical reaction networks is investigated, in the case when reaction processes happen on subsets of the domain. We prove the convergence to equilibrium by directly showing…
The principle of detailed balance states that in equilibrium each elementary process is equilibrated by its reverse process. For many real physico-chemical complex systems (e.g. homogeneous combustion, heterogeneous catalytic oxidation,…
The consistent definition of the thermodynamic functions of small open quantum systems in contact with an environment in equilibrium with a heat bath has been the subject of many debates in the quantum community. In the present work we…
A century ago, the foundations of equilibrium statistical mechanics were laid. For a system in equilibrium with a thermal bath, much is understood through the Boltzmann factor, exp{-H[C]/kT}, for the probability of finding the system in any…