Involvement of the environment is indispensable for establishing the statistical distribution of system. We analyze the statistical distribution of a quantum system coupled strongly with a heat bath. This distribution is determined by tracing over the bath's degrees of freedom for the equilibrium system-plus-bath composite. The stability of system distribution is largely affected by the system--bath interaction strength. We propose that the quantum system exhibits a stable distribution only when its system response function in the frequency domain satisfies $\tildeχ(ω= 0+)>0$. We show our results by investigating the non-interacting bosonic impurity system from both the thermodynamic and dynamic perspectives. Our study refines the theoretical framework of canonical statistics, offering insights into thermodynamic phenomena in small-scale systems.
Involvement of the environment is indispensable for establishing the statistical distribution of system. We analyze the statistical distribution of a quantum system coupled strongly with a heat bath. This distribution is determined by tracing over the bath's degrees of freedom for the equilibrium system-plus-bath composite. The stability of system distribution is largely affected by the system--bath interaction strength. We propose that the quantum system exhibits a stable distribution only when its system response function in the frequency domain satisfies χ~(ω=0+)>0. We show our results by investigating the non-interacting bosonic impurity system from both the thermodynamic and dynamic perspectives. Our study refines the theoretical framework of canonical statistics, offering insights into thermodynamic phenomena in small-scale systems.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom that deviations from standard thermodynamics originate from the strong coupling to the bath, it is shown that in quantum mechanics, these deviations originate from the uncertainty principle and are supported by the non-Markovian character of the dynamics. Specifically, it is shown that the lower bound of the dispersion of the total energy of the system, imposed by the uncertainty principle, is dominated by the bath power spectrum; therefore, quantum mechanics inhibits the system thermal-equilibrium-state from being described by the canonical Boltzmann's distribution. We show for a wide class of systems, systems interacting via central forces with pairwise-self-interacting environments; this general observation is in sharp contrast to the classical case, for which the thermal equilibrium distribution, irrespective of the interaction strength, is exactly characterized by the canonical Boltzmann distribution; therefore, no dependence on the bath power spectrum is present. We define an effective coupling to the environment that depends on all energy scales in the system and reservoir interaction. Sample computations in regimes predicted by this effective coupling are demonstrated. For example, for the case of strong effective coupling, deviations from standard thermodynamics are present and for the case of weak effective coupling, quantum features such as stationary entanglement are possible at high temperatures.
The non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics of many-body open systems is notoriously rich, especially in the strong-coupling regime where strong system-bath correlations develop and interactions produce non-perturbative effects. Such systems can be described by `quantum impurity models' where the system and bath are treated on an equal footing as a single composite. Paradigmatic examples are the spin-boson and Anderson impurity models, in which system degrees of freedom interact with either bosonic or fermionic gapless baths. Here we study the quantum work distribution function (WDF) of such systems following a quench. Capturing the full continuum of many-body excitations in the WDF requires a non-perturbative solution of the underlying non-equilibrium quantum impurity problem. For this purpose, we extend the time-dependent numerical renormalization group (TDNRG) approach to the calculation of the WDF, which applies directly in the thermodynamic limit, can be used for arbitrary quench amplitudes at zero or finite temperature, and provides exponentially fine low-energy resolution. Our numerically-exact solution reveals power-law threshold behavior due to the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe when the work approaches its minimum value, with universal scaling collapse of the distribution below an emergent low-energy scale induced by system-bath correlations.
For a small system at a low temperature, thermal fluctuation and quantum effect play important roles in quantum thermodynamics. Starting from micro-canonical ensemble, we generalize the Boltzmann–Gibbs statistical factor from infinite to finite systems, no matter the interactions between particles are considered or not. This generalized factor, similar to Tsallis’s q-form as a power-law distribution, has the restriction of finite energy spectrum and includes the nonextensivities of the small systems. We derive the exact expression for distribution of average particle numbers in the interacting classical and quantum nonextensive systems within a generalized canonical ensemble. This expression in the almost independent or elementary excitation quantum finite systems is similar to the corresponding ones obtained from the conventional grand-canonical ensemble. In the reconstruction for the statistical theory of the small systems, we present the entropy of the equilibrium systems and equation of total thermal energy. When we investigate the thermodynamics for the interacting nonextensive systems, we obtain the system–bath heat exchange and “uncompensated heat” which are in the thermodynamical level and independent on the detail of the system–bath coupling. For ideal finite systems, with different traps and boundary conditions, we calculate some thermodynamic quantities, such as the specific heat, entropy, and equation of state, etc. Particularly at low temperatures for the small systems, we predict some novel behaviors in the quantum thermodynamics, including internal entropy production, heat exchanges between the system and its surroundings and finite-size effects on the free energy.
Recently, the possibility of investigating single molecule, or single spin observables, as well as the necessity of a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying quantum dynamics in order to obtain nanoscale devices and nanostructered materials suitable for quantum computing tasks, have revived the interest in foundational aspects of quantum statistical mechanics. This thesis aims to give a contribution to this field by re-considering the statistical characterization of a quantum system at the light of some paradigmatic changes in our understanding of quantum theory which have taken place in the last two decades. In particular the impressive development of quantum information theory has changed the perceptions of quantum entanglement: for a long time it has been considered a somewhat paradoxical property of the matter at the atomic scale, but now it is regarded as an essential and ubiquitous phenomenon whose consequences are affecting the very macroscopic world that we experience. Still the decoherence program has brought out the importance of considering a quantum system together with its environment in order to clarify some key aspects of quantum dynamics. Thus, we start from the idea that quantum correlations are ubiquitous and somewhat uncontrollable in systems with many degrees of freedom which are typically considered in statistical mechanics. As a consequence we assume the standpoint that quantum statistical mechanics has not to be based on the underlying idea of a collection of many, independent quantum systems but rather it has to emerge at the level of a global wavefunction (pure state) which describes the system as well as its environment as a whole. In order to investigate the consequences of these assumptions we study the equilibrium distribution of an isolated quantum system. This is defined, in analogy with the ergodic foundations of classical statistical mechanics, on the basis of the time evolution of the quantum state. Then, we study the emergence of thermodynamic properties in a quantum system by studying the probability distribution of some function of interests, as the entropy and the equilibrium state of a subsystem, on Ensembles of Pure States. Such a probability distribution is derived from the geometry of the Hilbert space, and the theoretical tools suitable for its characterization are developed. On the one hand we perform a numerical sampling of the ensemble distributions by employing Monte Carlo techniques, on the other hand simpler analytical approximation of the geometrical distributions are derived by means of a maximum entropy principle. Model systems composed of an ensemble of spins are chosen to illustrate the salient features which emerge from the developed theoretical framework: the main point is that the Ensemble Distributions of “thermodynamic observables” (entropy or equilibrium state of a subsystem) are sharply peaked around a typical value. From the analysis it emerges that each of the overwhelming majority of the wavefunctions which has appreciable weight in the considered ensemble, is characterized by the same value of the “macroscopic” functions. This is a striking evidence of the “typicality” of these properties. In the essence, our impossibility to know the state of the system in detail does not matter, just for the remarkable fact that almost all quantum states behave essentially in the same way. By virtue of this typicality the study of the behaviour of the typical values of the thermodynamic function become meaningful. Notably, under certain conditions, one recovers the results of standard statistical mechanics, that is, the equilibrium average of the state of a subsystem can be cast in the Boltzmann canonical form at the temperature given by the usual thermodynamical relation . In the second part of the thesis we consider the dynamical aspects of the equilibrium state of a subsystem interacting with its environment. The fluctuations around the equilibrium average critically depends on the entanglement between the system and the environment and on the form of the interaction Hamiltonian. The connection between the dynamics of the fluctuations of an observable at the equilibrium and the relaxation toward the equilibrium from a “non typical” initial value is also investigated with the aid of simple model systems. The study presented in this thesis was partly motivated by a critical analysis of the statistical methods available for the theoretical modelling of magnetic resonance experiments. One of these, the Stochastic Liouville Equation, has been employed in a work completed during the first year of my Ph.D. program in order to interpret some feature of a two dimensional electron spin resonance experiment, [Fresch B., Frezzato D., Moro G. J., Kothe G., Freed J. H.; J. Phys. Chem. B., 110, 24238, (2006)].
It is known that the origin of the deviations from standard thermodynamics proceed from the strong coupling to the bath. Here, it is shown that these deviations are related to the power spectrum of the bath. Specifically, it is shown that the system thermal-equilibrium-state cannot be characterized by the canonical Boltzmann's distribution in quantum mechanics. This is because the uncertainty principle imposed a lower bound of the dispersion of the total energy of the system that is dominated by the spectral density of the bath. However, in the classical case, for a wide class of systems that interact via central forces with pairwise-self-interacting environment, the system thermal equilibrium state is exactly characterized by the canonical Boltzmann distribution. As a consequence of this analysis and taking into account all energy scales in the system and reservoir interaction, an effective coupling to the environment is introduced. Sample computations in different regimes predicted by this effective coupling are shown. Specifically, in the strong coupling effective regime, the system exhibits deviations from standard thermodynamics and in the weak coupling effective regime, quantum features such as stationary entanglement are possible at high temperatures. Moreover, it is known that the spectrum of thermal baths depends on the non-Markovian character. Hence, non-Markovian interactions have a important role in the thermal equilibrium state of physical systems. For example, in quantum optomechanics is looked up to cool the mechanical system through an auxiliary system which generally is a cavity. This cooling process takes into account the non-Markovian interaction and as it is shown here, it is more effective than if we use only the Markovian approximation in the equation of motion for the different modes.
We study in this thesis composite quantum systems under the influence of external environments.In the first part of this work, we investigate a two qubit interacting system having one of them isolated and the other coupled to a thermal bath.We analyze the effect of the temperature of the bath on the dynamics of the two qubit system.In order to do that, we consider two different models of system-reservoir interaction: i) a "microscopic" model, in which the master equation is derived taking into account the interaction between the two subsystems (qubits), ii) a "phenomenological" approach, in which the master equation consists of a dissipative term added to the unitary evolution term.We show that in the strong coupling regime between the subsystems (qubits), the expected thermal equilibrium steady state for the two-qubit system naturally arises in the framework of the microscopic model, while in the phenomenological approach it is obtained a steady state density operator which is not correct.Furthermore, the differences are even more profound in the weak coupling regime, when the models give rise to opposite behaviors with regard to the linear entropy of qubit 1.At the context of quantum systems coupled to environments with few degrees of freedom, we solve analytically the matter-radiation interaction model known as two atom Tavis-Cummings Model.With the solutions at hand, achieved in general circumstances until the present not found in literature, in which the constituent atoms may be coupled with different strengths to the field and also have different frequency detunings, we study the effects that arise from the interaction of a small environment (atom in a statistical mixture state) with the other atom coupled to an oscillator (cavity mode).We show that nonclassical features associated to the main system may be significantly degraded by the action of the small environment, if atom 2 is resonantly coupled to the field.We also demonstrate that the nonclassical behaviour of the system may be restored if we detune the field from the transition frequency of atom 2, the environment.