Related papers: Entropy of Classical Histories
The physical meaning of entropy is analyzed in the context of statistical, nuclear, atomic physics and cosmology. Only the microcanonical Boltzmann entropy leads to no contradictions in several simple, elementary and for thermodynamics…
We examine the minimization of information entropy for measures on the phase space of bounded domains, subject to constraints that are averages of grand canonical distributions. We describe the set of all such constraints and show that it…
The recent experimental realization of exotic matter states in isolated quantum systems and the ensuing controversy about the existence of negative absolute temperatures demand a careful analysis of the conceptual foundations underlying…
We show, by explicit examples, that the Jaynes inference scheme based on maximization of entropy can produce inseparable states even if there exists a separable state compatible with the measured data. It can lead to problems with…
We derive some Quantum Central Limit Theorems for expectation values of macroscopically coarse-grained observables, which are functions of coarse-grained hermitean operators. Thanks to the hermicity constraints, we obtain positive-definite…
According to thermodynamics, the inevitable increase of entropy allows the past to be distinguished from the future. From this perspective, any clock must incorporate an irreversible process that allows this flow of entropy to be tracked.…
Entropy is the distinguishing and most important concept of our efforts to understand and regularize our observations of a very large class of natural phenomena, and yet, it is one of the most contentious concepts of physics. In this…
A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…
Similarity between quantum mechanics and thermodynamics is discussed. It is found that if the Clausius equality is imposed on the Shannon entropy and the analogue of the heat quantity, then the value of the Shannon entropy comes to formally…
The universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics is widely attributed to a finely tuned initial condition of the universe. This creates a problem: why is the universe atypical? We suggest that the problem is an artefact created by…
The quest for quantum computers is motivated by their potential for solving problems that defy existing, classical, computers. The theory of computational complexity, one of the crown jewels of computer science, provides a rigorous…
For a closed bi-partite quantum system partitioned into system proper and environment we interprete the microcanonical and the canonical condition as constraints for the interaction between those two subsystems. In both cases the possible…
We illustrate the mathematical theory of entropy production in repeated quantum measurement processes developed in a previous work by studying examples of quantum instruments displaying various interesting phenomena and singularities. We…
According to E.T. Jaynes and E.P. Wigner, entropy is an anthropomorphic concept in the sense that in a physical system correspond many thermodynamic systems. The physical system can be examined from many points of view each time examining…
Thermodynamic extensivity is commonly introduced as a postulate -- the homogeneity of degree one in thermodynamic potentials. We provide a constructive derivation of this property from microscopic conditions on the pair potential, without…
Within the histories formalism the decoherence functional is a formal tool to investigate the emergence of classicality in isolated quantum systems, yet an explicit evaluation of it from first principles has not been reported. We provide…
Combining intuitive probabilistic assumptions with the basic laws of classical thermodynamics, using the latter to express probabilistic parameters in terms of the thermodynamic quantities, we get a simple unified derivation of the…
We prove a lower bound on the relative entropy between two finite-dimensional states in terms of their entropy difference and the dimension of the underlying space. The inequality is tight in the sense that equality can be attained for any…
We improve the entropic uncertainty relations for position and momentum coarse-grained measurements. We derive the continuous, coarse-grained counterparts of the discrete uncertainty relations based on the concept of majorization. The…
Entropic forces have recently attracted considerable attention as ways to reformulate, retrodict, and perhaps even "explain'" classical Newtonian gravity from a rather specific thermodynamic perspective. In this article I point out that if…