Related papers: Probability Thermodynamics and Probability Quantum…
We investigate the probability distribution of the quantum fluctuations of thermodynamic functions of finite, ballistic, phase-coherent Fermi gases. Depending on the chaotic or integrable nature of the underlying classical dynamics, on the…
At non-zero temperature classical systems exhibit statistical fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities arising from the variation of the system's initial conditions and its interaction with the environment. The fluctuating work, for…
Statistical thermodynamics delivers the probability distribution of the equilibrium state of matter through the constrained maximization of a special functional, entropy. Its elegance and enormous success have led to numerous attempts to…
A distribution of electromagnetic fields presents a statistical assembly of a particular type, which is at scale h a quantum statistical assembly itself and has also been instrumental to concretisation of the basic probability assumption of…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
In this note we lay some groundwork for the resource theory of thermodynamics in general probabilistic theories (GPTs). We consider theories satisfying a purely convex abstraction of the spectral decomposition of density matrices: that…
A general quantum theory encompassing Mechanics, Thermodynamics and irreversible dynamics is presented in two parts. The first part is concerned exclusively with the description of the states of any individual physical system. It is based…
Statistical thermodynamics has a universal appeal that extends beyond molecular systems, and yet, as its tools are being transplanted to fields outside physics, the fundamental question, \textit{what is thermodynamics?}, has remained…
Thermodynamics relies on the possibility to describe systems composed of a large number of constituents in terms of few macroscopic variables. Its foundations are rooted into the paradigm of statistical mechanics, where thermal properties…
Estimating the probability distribution 'q' governing the behaviour of a certain variable by sampling its value a finite number of times most typically involves an error. Successive measurements allow the construction of a histogram, or…
Entropy is the distinguishing and most important concept of our efforts to understand and regularize our observations of a very large class of natural phenomena, and yet, it is one of the most contentious concepts of physics. In this…
The minimal set of thermodynamic control parameters consists of a statistical (thermal) and a mechanical one. These suffice to introduce all the pertinent thermodynamic variables; thermodynamic processes can then be defined as paths on this…
The concept of temperature is one of the key ideas in describing the thermodynamical properties of a physical system. In classical statistical mechanics of ideal gases, the notion of temperature can be described in two different ways, the…
An extension of the Born rule, the {\it quantum typicality rule}, has recently been proposed [B. Galvan: Found. Phys. 37, 1540-1562 (2007)]. Roughly speaking, this rule states that if the wave function of a particle is split into…
The recently proposed probability representation of quantum mechanics is generalized to quantum field theory. We introduce a probability distribution functional for field configurations and find an evolution equation for such a…
A rigorous general definition of quantum probability is given, which is valid for elementary events and for composite events, for operationally testable measurements as well as for inconclusive measurements, and also for non-commuting…
This thesis investigates the connection between quantum theory, thermodynamics and information theory. Theories with structure similar to that of quantum theory are considered, mathematically described by the framework of "Generalized…
Statistical functions such as the moment-generating function, characteristic function, cumulant-generating function, and second characteristic function are cornerstone tools in classical statistics and probability theory. They provide a…
Quantum thermodynamics is an emerging research field aiming to extend standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to ensembles of sizes well below the thermodynamic limit, in non-equilibrium situations, and with the full…
In both classical and quantum thermodynamics, physical quantities are typically assigned objective values defined independently of our observations. We then refer to the 'work performed by a gas', or the 'entropy of the gas', regardless of…