Related papers: Probing thermal fluctuations through scalar test p…
At low temperatures and strong friction the time evolution of the density distribution in position follows a quantum Smoluchowski equation. Recently, also higher-order contributions of quantum fluctuations to drift and diffusion…
The interaction of a particle with vacuum fluctuations--which theoretically exist even in the complete absence of matter--can lead to observable irreversible decoherence if it were possible to switch on and off the particle charge suddenly.…
It is not possible to detect a vacuum fluctuation without a test particle interacting with the vacuum fluctuation in a measurable manner. In the quantum electrodynamics calculation presented here, a photon traveling through the vacuum is…
The displacement fluctuations of mirrors in optomechanical devices, induced via thermal expansion by temperature fluctuations due either to thermodynamic fluctuations or to fluctuations in the photon absorption, can be made smaller than…
The theory of cosmological fluctuations assumes that the pre-inflationary state of the universe was the quantum vacuum of a scalar field(s) coupled to gravity. The observed cosmic microwave background fluctuations are then interpreted as…
A quantum system can undergo a continuous phase transition at the absolute zero of temperature as some parameter entering its Hamiltonian is varied. These transitions are particularly interesting for, in contrast to their classical finite…
We investigate the long time behavior of a passive particle evolving in a one-dimensional diffusive random environment, with diffusion constant $D$. We consider two cases: (a) The particle is pulled forward by a small external constant…
The field-theoretical description of quantum fluctuations on the background of a tunneling field $\sigma$ is revisited in the case of a functional Schrodinger approach. We apply this method in the case when quantum fluctuations are coupled…
In addition to providing general constraints on probability distributions, fluctuation theorems allow to infer essential information on the role played by temperature in heat exchange phenomena. In this numerical study, we measure the…
We revisit the quantum theory of a massive, minimally coupled scalar field, propagating on the Planck-era isotropic cosmological quantum spacetime which transitions to a classical spacetime in later times. The quantum effects modify the…
We study spatial correlations in the transport of energy between two baths at different temperatures. To do this, we introduce a minimal model in which energy flows from one bath to another through two subsystems. We show that the…
We study a two-level atom in interaction with a real massless scalar quantum field in a spacetime with a reflecting boundary. The presence of the boundary modifies the quantum fluctuations of the scalar field, which in turn modifies the…
Vacuum excitation by time-varying boundary conditions is not only of fundamental importance but also has recently been confirmed in a laboratory experiment. In this paper, we study the vacuum excitation of a scalar field by the…
The impact of quantum fluctuations on the phase diffusion in resistively shunted superconducting quantum points subject to an external ac-voltage is studied. Based on an extension of the classical Smoluchowski equation to the quantum…
We present a scaling theory for the effect of thermal fluctuations on the characteristics of the depinning transition, and also in the closely related directed percolation model. Thermal effects act as a sort of external field that produces…
A general fluctuational-electrodynamic theory is developed to investigate radiative heat exchanges between objects which are assumed small compared with their thermal wavelength (dipolar approximation) in N-body systems immersed in a…
The Brownian motion of small particles interacting with a field at a finite temperature is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon. At zero temperature, even though the thermal fluctuations are absent, quantum fields still possess…
Non-equilibrium phase transitions of a scalar field in an expanding spacetime are discussed. These transitions are shown to lead, for appropriate potential energy functions, to a biased choice of vacuum structure which can be analytically…
Thermal effects on the creation of particles under the influence of time-dependent boundary conditions are investigated. The dominant temperature correction to the energy radiated by a moving mirror is derived by means of response theory.…
We investigate the thermodynamical properties of quantum fields in curved spacetime. Our approach is to consider quantum fields in curved spacetime as a quantum system undergoing an out-of-equilibrium transformation. The non-equilibrium…