Related papers: A different approach to introducing statistical me…
Using the quantum Hamiltonian for a gravitational system with boundary, we find the partition function and derive the resulting thermodynamics. The Hamiltonian is the boundary term required by functional differentiability of the action for…
Stochastic thermodynamics as reviewed here systematically provides a framework for extending the notions of classical thermodynamics like work, heat and entropy production to the level of individual trajectories of well-defined…
I give a quick overview of some of the theoretical background necessary for using modern non-equilibrium statistical physics to investigate the thermodynamics of computation. I first present some of the necessary concepts from information…
Classical thermodynamics is unrivalled in its range of applications and relevance to everyday life. It enables a description of complex systems, made up of microscopic particles, in terms of a small number of macroscopic quantities, such as…
The significance of statistical physics concepts such as entropy extends far beyond classical thermodynamics. We interpret the similarity between partitions in statistical mechanics and partitions in Bayesian inference as an articulation of…
Typicality arguments replace the postulated mixed state ensembles of statistical mechanics with pure states sampled uniformly at random, explaining why most microstates of large systems exhibit thermal behavior. This paradigm has been…
The present paper is meant to give a simple introduction to the problem of the connection between microscopic dynamics and statistical laws. For sake of simplicity, we mostly refer to non-dissipative dynamics, since dissipation adds…
The development of stochastic thermodynamics during the last decades prompted the discovery of novel nonequilibrium relations refining our understanding of the second law in small fluctuating systems and its connection with information…
Evidence implies that basic laws of thermodynamics must be tested by experiments. In this paper, an experiment is designed to measure the entropy of a system with at least one known (measurable) equation of state, especially the gas…
Quantum mechanics can emerge from classical statistics. A typical quantum system describes an isolated subsystem of a classical statistical ensemble with infinitely many classical states. The state of this subsystem can be characterized by…
The black hole area theorem suggests that classical general relativity is the thermodynamic limit of a quantum statistics. The degrees of freedom of the statistical theory cannot be the spacetime metric. We argue that the statistical theory…
It is notoriously difficult to apply statistical mechanics to generally covariant systems, because the notions of time, energy and equilibrium are seriously modified in this context. We discuss the conditions under which weaker versions of…
Microcanonical Thermodynamics allows the application of Statistical Mechanics on one hand to closed finite and even small systems and on the other to the largest,self-gravitating ones. However, one has to reconsider the fundamental…
Engines are open systems that can generate work cyclically, at the expense of an external disequilibrium. They are ubiquitous in nature and technology, but the course of mathematical physics over the last 300 years has tended to make their…
Heat can flow from cold to hot at any phase separation. Therefore Lynden-Bell's gravo-thermal catastrophe must be reconsidered. The original objects of Thermodynamics, the separation of phases at first order phase transitions, like boiling…
There are three levels of description in classical statistical mechanics, the microscopic/dynamic, the macroscopic/statistical and the thermodynamic. At one end there is a well-used concept of equilibrium in thermodynamics and at the other…
Statistical mechanics relies on the complete though probabilistic description of a system in terms of all the microscopic variables. Its object is to derive therefrom static and dynamic properties involving some reduced set of variables.…
Comparison of the thermodynamic entropy with Boltzmann's principle shows that under conditions of constant volume the total number of arrangements in simple thermodynamic systems with temperature-independent heat capacities is TC/k. A…
In statistical mechanics, entropy is defined as a fundamental quantity. However, its unit, J/K, involves that of temperature, which is only subsequently defined - and defined in terms of entropy. This circularity arises with the…
Entropy in thermodynamics is an extensive quantity, whereas standard methods in statistical mechanics give rise to a non-extensive expression for the entropy. This discrepancy is often seen as a sign that basic formulas of statistical…