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arXiv · 1402.0324

Extremely quick thermalization in a macroscopic quantum system for a typical nonequilibrium subspace

Sheldon Goldstein·Takashi Hara·Hal Tasaki
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Abstract

The fact that macroscopic systems approach thermal equilibrium may seem puzzling, for example, because it may seem to conflict with the time-reversibility of the microscopic dynamics. We here prove that in a macroscopic quantum system for a typical choice of "nonequilibrium subspace", any initial state indeed thermalizes, and in fact does so very quickly, on the order of the Boltzmann time $\tau_\mathrm{B}:=h/(k_\mathrm{B}T)$. Therefore what needs to be explained is, not that macroscopic systems approach equilibrium, but that they do so slowly.

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BibTeXRIS

Sheldon Goldstein, Takashi Hara, Hal Tasaki. 2014-02-03. Extremely quick thermalization in a macroscopic quantum system for a typical nonequilibrium subspace. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/4/045002

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