Related papers: Time irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics
Time reversal symmetry is a fundamental property of many quantum mechanical systems. The relation between statistical physics and time reversal is subtle and not all statistical theories conserve this particular symmetry, most notably…
For a probability measure preserving dynamical system $(\mathcal{X},f,\mu)$, the Poincar\'e Recurrence Theorem asserts that $\mu$-almost every orbit is recurrent with respect to its initial condition. This motivates study of the statistics…
The issue of how time reversible microscopic dynamics gives rise to macroscopic irreversible processes has been a recurrent issue in Physics since the time of Boltzmann whose ideas shaped, and essentially resolved, such an apparent…
For decades, researchers have sought to understand how the irreversibility of the surrounding world emerges from the seemingly time symmetric, fundamental laws of physics. Quantum mechanics conjectured a clue that final irreversibility is…
Although the laws of classical physics are deterministic, thermodynamics gives rise to an arrow of time through irreversible processes. In quantum mechanics the unitary nature of the time evolution makes it intrinsically reversible, however…
In 1979 Penrose hypothesized that the arrows of time are explained by the hypothesis that the fundamental laws are time irreversible. That is, our reversible laws, such as the standard model and general relativity are effective, and emerge…
The Poincar\'e recurrence theorem shows that conservative systems in a bounded region of phase space eventually return arbitrarily close to their initial state after a finite amount of time. An analogous behavior occurs in certain quantum…
A high dimensional dynamical system is often studied by experimentalists through the measurement of a relatively low number of different quantities, called an observation. Following this idea and in the continuity of Boshernitzan's work,…
We show that quantum effects modify the decay rate of Poincar\'e recurrences P(t) in classical chaotic systems with hierarchical structure of phase space. The exponent p of the algebraic decay P(t) ~ 1/t^p is shown to have the universal…
It is well-known that the 4-rotation in the 4-dimensional space-time is equivalent to the CPT-transformation (C is the charge conjugation, P is the space inversion and T is the time-reversal). The standard definition of the T-reversal…
The symmetry of quantum theory under time reversal has long been a subject of controversy because the transition probabilities given by Born's rule do not apply backward in time. Here, we resolve this problem within a rigorous operational…
Time can be defined as the duration between events. It is irreversible. When used as a variable in quantifying the changing properties of matter, this irreversibility of time is incompatible with Newton's deterministic mechanics and with…
Unlike most other laws of nature, the second law of thermodynamics is of a statistical nature, according to Boltzmann, meaning that its reliability arises from the vast number of particles present in macroscopic systems. This means that…
Uncovering the origin of the arrow of time remains a fundamental scientific challenge. Within the framework of statistical physics, this problem was inextricably associated with the second law of thermodynamics, which declares that entropy…
From the Physics point of view, time is now best described through General Relativity, as part of space-time which is a dynamical object encoding gravity. Time possesses also some intrinsic irreversibility due to thermodynamics, quantum…
Numerical solutions to Newton's equations of motion for chaotic self gravitating systems of more than 2 bodies are often regarded to be irreversible. This is due to the exponential growth of errors introduced by the integration scheme and…
A time-reversal symmetry relation is established for out-of-equilibrium dilute or rarefied gases described by the fluctuating Boltzmann equation. The relation is obtained from the associated coarse-grained master equation ruling the random…
A broken time-reversal symmetry, i.e. broken detailed balance, is central to non-equilibrium physics and is a prerequisite for life. However, it turns out to be quite challenging to unambiguously define and quantify time-reversal symmetry…
Poincare recurrence theorem states that any finite system will come arbitrary close to its initial state after some very long but finite time. At the statistical level, this by itself does not represent a paradox, but apparently violates…
We make precise sense of the idea of "molecular chaos" through algorithmic randomness of microscopic trajectories, and ground macroscopic irreversibility in the lack of symmetry under time reversal of this property. This concept of…