Related papers: Thermal quantum spacetime
Statistical equilibrium configurations are important in the physics of macroscopic systems with a large number of constituent degrees of freedom. They are expected to be crucial also in discrete quantum gravity, where dynamical spacetime…
Our fundamental theories, i.e., the quantum theory and general relativity, are invariant under time reversal. Only when we treat system from the point of view of thermodynamics, i.e., averaging between many subsystem components, an arrow of…
The project concerns the interplay among quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, in isolated quantum systems. The underlying goal is to improve our understanding of the concept of thermal equilibrium in quantum systems.…
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…
There ought to exist a description of quantum field theory which does not depend on an external classical time. To achieve this goal, in a recent paper we have proposed a non-commutative special relativity in which space-time and matter…
We show that, when we study the coexistence of general relativity with thermodynamics, some physical properties that are usually thought of as holographic and lying in the domain of quantum gravity can actually be accessed even at the…
Understanding thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in the full general relativistic context is an open problem. I give tentative definitions of equilibrium state, mean values, mean geometry, entropy and temperature, which reduce to the…
Maximum entropy principle and Souriau's symplectic generalization of Gibbs states have provided crucial insights leading to extensions of standard equilibrium statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. In this brief contribution, we show how…
We review selected advances in the theoretical understanding of complex quantum many-body systems with regard to emergent notions of quantum statistical mechanics. We cover topics such as equilibration and thermalisation in pure state…
The interplay between thermodynamics, general relativity and quantum mechanics has long intrigued researchers. Recently, important advances have been obtained in thermodynamics, mainly regarding its application to the quantum domain through…
Thermodynamics is based on a coarse-grained approach, from which its fundamental variables emerge, effectively erasing the complicate details of the microscopic dynamics within a macroscopic system. The strength of Thermodynamics lies in…
A general-covariant statistical framework capable of describing classical fluctuations of the gravitational field is a thorny open problem in theoretical physics, yet ultimately necessary to understand the nature of the gravitational…
Gibbs states are known to play a crucial role in the statistical description of a system with a large number of degrees of freedom. They are expected to be vital also in a quantum gravitational system with many underlying fundamental…
The use of statistical methods to model gravitational systems is crucial to physics practice, but the extent to which thermodynamics and statistical mechanics genuinely apply to these systems is a contentious issue. This paper provides new…
The thermodynamics of quantum systems driven out of equilibrium has attracted increasing attention in last the decade, in connection with quantum information and statistical physics, and with a focus on non-classical signatures. While a…
Black holes exist all over our Universe, possessing a very wide range of masses. At the moment, they serve as a probe to test general relativity at astrophysical scales, but in the future they may also give us information about gravity at…
In this chapter we address the topic of quantum thermodynamics in the presence of additional observables beyond the energy of the system. In particular we discuss the special role that the generalized Gibbs ensemble plays in this theory,…
Theories of emergent gravity have established a deep connection between entropy and the geometry of spacetime by looking at the latter through a thermodynamic lens. In this framework, the macroscopic properties of gravity arise in a…
Background independence is often emphasized as an important property of a quantum theory of gravity that takes seriously the geometrical nature of general relativity. In a background-independent formulation, quantum gravity should determine…
Spacetimes with horizons show a resemblance to thermodynamic systems and it is possible to associate the notions of temperature and entropy with them. Several aspects of this connection are reviewed in a manner appropriate for broad…