We consider the H-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator through the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of potential in producing entropy is investigated in detail, and we found that including a barrier potential into a harmonic trap would lead to the thermalization of the system, while a harmonic trap alone would not thermalize the system. During thermalization, Shannon entropy increases, which shows that a microscopic quantum system still obeys the macroscopic thermodynamics law. Meanwhile, initial coherent mechanical energy transforms to incoherent thermal energy during thermalization, which exhibiting the decoherence of an oscillating wave packet featured by a large decreasing of autocorrelation length. When reaching thermal equilibrium, the wave packet comes to a halt, with the density distributions both in position and momentum spaces well-fitted by a microcanonical ensemble of statistical mechanics.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e24081163 | DOI Listing |
Entropy (Basel)
August 2022
Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 106, Taiwan.
We consider the H-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator through the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of potential in producing entropy is investigated in detail, and we found that including a barrier potential into a harmonic trap would lead to the thermalization of the system, while a harmonic trap alone would not thermalize the system. During thermalization, Shannon entropy increases, which shows that a microscopic quantum system still obeys the macroscopic thermodynamics law.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEntropy (Basel)
November 2020
Departamento de Física and Instituto de Computación Científica Avanzada (ICCAEx), Universidad de Extremadura, E-06006 Badajoz, Spain.
Finding the proper entropy-like Lyapunov functional associated with the inelastic Boltzmann equation for an isolated freely cooling granular gas is a still unsolved challenge. The original -theorem hypotheses do not fit here and the -functional presents some additional measure problems that are solved by the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) of a reference velocity distribution function from the actual distribution. The right choice of the reference distribution in the KLD is crucial for the latter to qualify or not as a Lyapunov functional, the asymptotic "homogeneous cooling state" (HCS) distribution being a potential candidate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
September 2016
Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60637, USA.
Remarkable progress of quantum information theory (QIT) allowed to formulate mathematical theorems for conditions that data-transmitting or data-processing occurs with a non-negative entropy gain. However, relation of these results formulated in terms of entropy gain in quantum channels to temporal evolution of real physical systems is not thoroughly understood. Here we build on the mathematical formalism provided by QIT to formulate the quantum H-theorem in terms of physical observables.
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