Related papers: The foundations of statistical mechanics from enta…
We study the possibility of applying statistical mechanics to generally covariant quantum theories with a vanishing Hamiltonian. We show that (under certain appropiate conditions) this makes sense, in spite of the absence of a notion of…
Where does quantum mechanics part ways with classical mechanics? How does quantum randomness differ fundamentally from classical randomness? We cannot fully explain how the theories differ until we can derive them within a single axiomatic…
We consider the dynamics of an arbitrary quantum system coupled to a large arbitrary and fully quantum mechanical environment through a random interaction. We establish analytically and check numerically the typicality of this dynamics, in…
It is argued that quantum mechanics follows naturally from the assumptions that there are no fundamental causal laws but only probabilities for physical processes that are constrained by symmetries, and reality is relational in the sense…
We introduce a generalization of entanglement based on the idea that entanglement is relative to a distinguished subspace of observables rather than a distinguished subsystem decomposition. A pure quantum state is entangled relative to such…
It is well-known that pure quantum states are typically almost maximally entangled, and thus have close to maximally mixed subsystems. We consider whether this is true for probabilistic theories more generally, and not just for quantum…
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…
Quantum mechanics for a four-state-system is derived from classical statistics. Entanglement, interference, the difference between identical fermions or bosons and the unitary time evolution find an interpretation within a classical…
We consider a system weakly interacting with a bath as a thermodynamic setting to establish a quantum foundation of statistical physics. It is shown that even if the composite system is initially in an arbitrary nonequilibrium pure quantum…
Why is thermalisation a universal phenomenon? How does a quantum system reach thermodynamical equilibrium? These questions are not new, dating even from the very birth of quantum theory and have been the subject of a renewed interest over…
The frame of classical probability theory can be generalized by enlarging the usual family of random variables in order to encompass nondeterministic ones: this leads to a frame in which two kinds of correlations emerge: the classical…
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 authors of the recent paper [1] boldly claim to discover a new fully quantum approach to foundation of statistical mechanics: "Our conceptually novel approach is free of mathematically ambiguous notions such as probability, ensemble,…
One of the crucial differences between mathematical models of classical and quantum mechanics is the use of the tensor product of the state spaces of subsystems as the state space of the corresponding composite system. (To describe an…
Understanding the rich spatial and temporal structures in nonequilibrium thermal environments is a major subject of statistical mechanics. Because universal laws, based on an ensemble of systems, are mute on an individual system, exploring…
We examine the fundamental aspects of statistical mechanics, dividing the problem into a discussion purely about probability, which we analyse from a Bayesian standpoint. We argue that the existence of a unique maximising probability…
The statistical mechanical description of small systems staying in thermal equilibrium with an environment can be achieved by means of the Hamiltonian of mean force. In contrast to the reduced density matrix of an open quantum system, or…
On the basis of information theory, a new formalism of classical non-relativistic mechanics of a mass point is proposed. The particle trajectories of a general dynamical system defined on an (1+n)-dimensional smooth manifold are treated…
We establish an analytical criterion for dynamical thermalization within harmonic systems, applicable to both classical and quantum models. Specifically, we prove that thermalization of various observables, such as particle energies in…
We present a generalization of quantum Stein's Lemma to the situation in which the alternative hypothesis is formed by a family of states, which can moreover be non-i.i.d.. We consider sets of states which satisfy a few natural properties,…