Related papers: Macroscopic and Microscopic Thermal Equilibrium
Chaos and ergodicity are the cornerstones of statistical physics and thermodynamics. While classically even small systems like a particle in a two-dimensional cavity, can exhibit chaotic behavior and thereby relax to a microcanonical…
The temperature of a physical system is operationally defined in physics as "that quantity which is measured by a thermometer" weakly coupled to, and at equilibrium with the system. This definition is unique only at global equilibrium in…
We consider two statistically independent systems described by the same entropy belonging to the two-parameter family of Sharma-Mittal. Assuming a weak interaction among the systems, allowing in this way an exchange of heat and work, we…
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…
We show that a local measurement of temperature and voltage for a quantum system in steady state, arbitrarily far from equilibrium, with arbitrary interactions within the system, is unique when it exists. This is interpreted as a…
A pure quantum state can fully describe thermal equilibrium as long as one focuses on local observables. Thermodynamic entropy can also be recovered as the entanglement entropy of small subsystems. When the size of the subsystem increases,…
We discuss the application of techniques of quantum estimation theory and quantum metrology to thermometry. The ultimate limit to the precision at which the temperature of a system at thermal equilibrium can be determined is related to the…
Open quantum systems that comply with the master equation and detailed balance decay in a non-oscillatory manner to thermal equilibrium. Beyond the weak coupling limit, systems that break microreversibility (e.g., in the presence of…
There is a dichotomy in the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many body systems. In the presence of integrability, expectation values of local operators equilibrate to values described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which retains…
The deterministic and time-reversal symmetric dynamics of isolated quantum systems is at odds with irreversible equilibration observed in generic thermodynamic systems. Standard approaches at a reconciliation employ subjective restrictions…
Understanding how an isolated quantum system evolves toward a thermal state from an initial state far from equilibrium such as one prepared by a global quantum quench has attracted significant interest in recent years. This phenomenon can…
The thermal properties of ice, liquid water and steam are at odds with statistical theories applied to many-body systems. Here, these properties are quantitatively explained with a bulk-scale matter field emerging from the indefinite status…
A physical system is in local equilibrium if it cannot be distinguished from a global equilibrium by ``infinitesimally localized measurements''. This should be a natural characterization of local equilibrium, but the problem is to give a…
The standard assumption for the equilibrium microcanonical state in quantum mechanics, that the system must be in one of the energy eigenstates, is weakened so as to allow superpositions of states. The weakened form of the microcanonical…
The last decade has witnessed the remarkable progress in our understanding of thermalization in isolated quantum systems. Combining the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis with quantum measurement theory, we extend the framework of quantum…
Deriving conditions under which a macroscopic system thermalizes directly from the underlying quantum many-body dynamics of its microscopic constituents is a long-standing challenge in theoretical physics. The well-known eigenstate…
We revisist the issue of entanglement of thermal equilibrium states in composite quantum systems. The possible scenarios are exemplified in bipartite qubit/qubit and qubit/qutrit systems.
We extend the formalism of pure state thermodynamics to matrix product states. In pure state thermodynamics finite temperature properties of quantum systems are derived without the need of statistical mechanics ensembles, but instead using…
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…
Statistical mechanics is one of the most comprehensive theories in physics. From a boiling pot of water to the complex dynamics of quantum many-body systems it provides a successful connection between the microscopic dynamics of atoms and…