Related papers: Non-equilibrium quantum systems: Divergence betwee…
New exact results about the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of open quantum systems at arbitrary timescales are obtained by considering all possible variations of initial conditions of a system, its environment, and correlations between them.…
We consider different properties of small open quantum systems coupled to an environment and described by a non-Hermitian Hamilton operator. Of special interest is the non-analytical behavior of the eigenvalues in the vicinity of singular…
Within the framework of relativistic quantum field theory, a novel method is established which allows to distinguish non-equilibrium states admitting locally a thermodynamic interpretation. The basic idea is to compare these states with…
The phenomenon of universality is one of the most striking in many-body physics. Despite having sometimes wildly different microscopic constituents, systems can nonetheless behave in precisely the same way, with only the variable names…
Small thermodynamic systems exhibit peculiar behavior different from that observed in long-scale systems. Non-equilibrium processes taking place in those systems are strongly influenced by the presence of fluctuations which can be large.…
The contact process is a paradigmatic classical stochastic system displaying critical behavior even in one dimension. It features a non-equilibrium phase transition into an absorbing state that has been widely investigated and shown to…
Non-Markovian effects in the evolution of open quantum systems have recently attracted widespread interest, particularly in the context of assessing the efficiency of energy and charge transfer in nanoscale biomolecular networks and quantum…
A new microcanonical equilibrium state is introduced for quantum systems with finite-dimensional state spaces. Equilibrium is characterised by a uniform distribution on a level surface of the expectation value of the Hamiltonian. The…
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…
The usual paradigm of open quantum systems falls short when the environment is actually coupled to additional fields or components that drive it out of equilibrium. Here we explore the simplest such scenario, by considering a two level…
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics can provide strong advantages when compared to more standard equilibrium situations. Here, we present a general framework to study its application to concrete problems, which is valid also beyond the…
The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…
Recent progress in manipulating atomic and condensed matter systems has instigated a surge of interest in non-equilibrium physics, including many-body dynamics of trapped ultracold atoms and ions, near-field radiative heat transfer, and…
We discuss how the thermalization of an elementary quantum system is modified when the system is placed in an environment out of thermal equilibrium. To this aim we provide a detailed investigation of the dynamics of an atomic system placed…
In this work we present a formalism to describe non equilibrium conditions in systems with a discretized energy spectrum, such as quantum systems. We develop a formalism based on a combination of Gibbs-Shannon entropy and information…
This paper addresses fundamental aspects of statistical mechanics such as the motivation of a classical state space with spontaneous transitions, the meaning of non-equilibrium in the context of thermalization, and the justification of…
In many important cases, the rate of excitation of a system embedded in an environment is significantly smaller than the internal system relaxation rates. An important example is that of light-induced processes under natural conditions, in…
Equilibrium is a rather ideal situation, the exception rather than the rule in Nature. Whenever the external or internal parameters of a physical system are varied its subsequent relaxation to equilibrium may be either impossible or take…
There has been substantial progress in recent years in the quantitative understanding of the nonequilibrium time evolution of quantum fields. Important topical applications, in particular in high energy particle physics and cosmology,…
Interaction between a quantum system and its environment can induce stationary coherences -- off-diagonal elements in the reduced system density matrix -- even at equilibrium. This work investigates the ``quantumness'' of such phenomena by…