Related papers: Hypothetic time -- temperature duality as a hint f…
The nonzero ground-state energy of the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator implies quantum fluctuations around the minimum of the potential with the mean square value proportional to Planck's constant. In classical mechanics thermal…
The first-order general relativistic theory of a generic dissipative (heat-conducting, viscous, particle-creating) fluid is rediscussed from a unified covariant frame-independent point of view. By generalizing some previous works in the…
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…
We study non-perturbative real time correlation functions at finite temperature. In order to see whether the classical term gives a good approximation in the high temperature limit T >> \hbar\omega, we consider the first \hbar^2 quantum…
Time-varying media, i.e., materials whose properties dynamically change in time, have opened new possibilities for thermal emission engineering by lifting the limitations imposed by energy conservation and reciprocity, and providing access…
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…
The competition between evolution time, interaction strength, and temperature challenges our understanding of many-body quantum systems out-of-equilibrium. Here we consider a benchmark system, the Hubbard dimer, which allows us to explore…
In this article, we address the problem of how temperature of a quantum system is observed. By proposing a thought experiment, we argue that temperature must be conceived as an operator and its measurement must necessarily accompany a…
The zeroth principle of thermodynamics in the form "temperature is uniform at equilibrium" is notoriously violated in relativistic gravity. Temperature uniformity is often derived from the maximization of the total number of microstates of…
Temperature is usually defined for physical systems at thermal equilibrium. Nevertheless one may wonder if it would be possible to attribute a meaningful notion of temperature to an arbitrary quantum state, beyond simply the thermal (Gibbs)…
Distinguishability plays a major role in quantum and statistical physics. When particles are identical their wave function must be either symmetric or antisymmetric under permutations and the number of microscopic states, which determines…
Quantum detailed balance conditions and quantum fluctuation relations are two important concepts in the dynamics of open quantum systems: both concern how such systems behave when they thermalize because of interaction with an environment.…
An open question of fundamental importance in quantum thermodynamics is how to describe the statistics of work for initial state with quantum coherence. In this paper, work statistics is considered from a fully new perspective of…
The principle of microscopic reversibility lies at the core of fluctuation theorems, which have extended our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics to the statistical level. In the quantum regime, however, this elementary…
Time is absolute in standard quantum theory and dynamical in general relativity. The combination of both theories into a theory of quantum gravity leads therefore to a "problem of time". In my essay I shall investigate those consequences…
Quantum theory depends on an external classical time, and there ought to exist an equivalent reformulation of the theory which does not depend on such a time. The demand for the existence of such a reformulation suggests that quantum theory…
We show how statistical thermodynamics can be formulated in situations in which thermodynamics applies, while equilibrium statistical mechanics does not. A typical case is, in the words of Landau and Lifshitz, that of partial (or…
'Relativistic thermodynamics' should be understood not as a generalization of a non-relativistic theory but as an application of a general thermodynamic framework, neutral as to spacetime setting and allowing arbitrary conserved quantities,…
In this article we study the nature of time in Mechanics. The fundamental principle, according to which a mechanical system evolves governed by a second order differential equation, implies the existence of an absolute time-duration in the…
At the intersection of quantum theory and relativity lies the possibility of a clock experiencing a superposition of proper times. We consider quantum clocks constructed from the internal degrees of relativistic particles that move through…