Related papers: Microcanonical entropy: consistency and adiabatic …
Despite well over a century of effort, the proper expression for the classical entropy in statistical mechanics remains a subject of debate. The Boltzmann entropy (calculated from a surface in phase space) has been criticized as not being…
For more than 100 years, one of the central concepts in statistical mechanics has been the microcanonical ensemble, which provides a way of calculating the thermodynamic entropy for a specified energy. A controversy has recently emerged…
The standard argument for the Lorentz invariance of the thermodynamic entropy in equilibrium is based on the assumption that it is possible to perform an adiabatic transformation whose only outcome is to accelerate a macroscopic body,…
A question that is currently highly debated is whether the microcanonical entropy should be expressed as the logarithm of the phase volume (volume entropy, also known as the Gibbs entropy) or as the logarithm of the density of states…
The construction of a microthermodynamic formalism for isolated systems based on the concept of adiabatic invariance is an old but seldom appreciated effort in the literature, dating back at least to P. Hertz [Ann. Phys. (Leipzig) 33, 225…
Small systems consisting of a few particles are increasingly technologically relevant. In such systems, an intense debate in microcanonical statistical mechanics has been about the correctness of Boltzmann's surface entropy versus Gibbs'…
Recently a number of approaches has been developed to connect the microscopic dynamics of particle systems to the macroscopic properties of systems in nonequilibrium stationary states, via the theory of dynamical systems. This way a direct…
In a recent paper, Dunkel and Hilbert [Nature Physics 10, 67-72 (2014)] use an entropy definition due to Gibbs to provide a 'consistent thermostatistics' which forbids negative absolute temperatures. Here we argue that the Gibbs entropy…
Thermodynamics makes definite predictions about the thermal behavior of macroscopic systems in and out of equilibrium. Statistical mechanics aims to derive this behavior from the dynamics and statistics of the atoms and molecules making up…
Statistical thermodynamics is valuable as a conceptual structure that shapes our thinking about equilibrium thermodynamic states. A cloud of unresolved questions surrounding the foundations of the theory could lead an impartial observer to…
The recent experimental realization of exotic matter states in isolated quantum systems and the ensuing controversy about the existence of negative absolute temperatures demand a careful analysis of the conceptual foundations underlying…
We analyze a gas of noninteracting fermions confined to a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential, with the aim of distinguishing between two proposed definitions of the thermodynamic entropy in the microcanonical ensemble, namely the…
Depending on the exact experimental conditions, the thermodynamic properties of physical systems can be related to one or more thermostatistical ensembles. Here, we survey the notion of thermodynamic temperature in different statistical…
We obtain macroscopic adiabatic thermodynamic transformations by space-time scalings of a microscopic Hamiltonian dynamics subject to random collisions with the environment. The microscopic dynamics is given by a chain of oscillators…
We examine the minimization of information entropy for measures on the phase space of bounded domains, subject to constraints that are averages of grand canonical distributions. We describe the set of all such constraints and show that it…
The issue of the thermodynamics of a system of distinguishable particles is discussed in this paper. In constructing the statistical mechanics of distinguishable particles from the definition of Boltzmann entropy, it is found that the…
Microcanonical thermodynamics allows the application of statistical mechanics both to finite and even small systems and also to the largest, self-gravitating ones. However, one must reconsider the fundamental principles of statistical…
Statistical formulations of thermodynamic entropy, such as those by Boltzmann and Gibbs, were originally developed for classical systems and are well understood in that context. However, the foundational aspects of quantum statistical…
We develop a generalized theory of (meta)equilibrium statistical mechanics in the thermodynamic limit valid for both smooth and fractal phase spaces. In the former case, our approach leads naturally to Boltzmann-Gibbs standard…
The Gibbs entropy of a macroscopic classical system is a function of a probability distribution over phase space, i.e., of an ensemble. In contrast, the Boltzmann entropy is a function on phase space, and is thus defined for an individual…