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arXiv:2604.23409

Principles of relativistic quantum statistical thermodynamics: a class of exactly solvable models

A. Yu. Zakharov

quant-phcond-mat.stat-mechSubmitted Apr 25, 2026• Announced Apr 28, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

A system of interacting atoms is represented as an union of two subsystems, one of which is the system of atoms, and the other is an auxiliary scalar covariant field, which is equivalent to a given static interatomic potential of general form only in the non-relativistic approximation. It is shown that the auxiliary field is a superposition of Klein-Gordon fields, the parameters of which are related to singular points of the Fourier transform of the corresponding interatomic potential. The general form of the relativistic Hamiltonian system of interacting atoms is established. It is shown that the exact calculation of the relativistic partition function of a system of interacting atoms, taking into account the field degrees of freedom, reduces to renormalizing the parameters of the auxiliary field. It is established that the field degrees of freedom lead to a divergence in the total energy of a classical relativistic system - an analogue of the ultraviolet catastrophe. Quantization of the auxiliary field eliminates this divergence. The existence of a phase transition within the framework of relativistic quantum statistical thermodynamics has been proven.

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26 pages, 3 figures

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A system of interacting atoms is represented as an union of two subsystems, one of which is the system of atoms, and the other is an auxiliary scalar covariant field, which is equivalent to a given static interatomic potential of general form only in the non-relativistic approximation. It is shown that the auxiliary field is a superposition of Klein-Gordon fields, the parameters of which are related to singular points of the Fourier transform of the corresponding interatomic potential. The general form of the relativistic Hamiltonian system of interacting atoms is established. It is shown that the exact calculation of the relativistic partition function of a system of interacting atoms, taking into account the field degrees of freedom, reduces to renormalizing the parameters of the auxiliary field. It is established that the field degrees of freedom lead to a divergence in the total energy of a classical relativistic system - an analogue of the ultraviolet catastrophe. Quantization of the auxiliary field eliminates this divergence. The existence of a phase transition within the framework of relativistic quantum statistical thermodynamics has been proven.
The thermodynamic properties of several systems of multilevel atoms interacting with a quantized radiation field are investigated. We allow a quantum-mechanical treatment of the translational degrees of freedom and do not require the rotating-wave approximation. In the finite-photon-mode case one can calculate the free energy per atom in the thermodynamic limit exactly and rigorously. In the infinite-mode case we only get upper and lower bounds, but these are sufficient to give conditions for thermodynamic stability and instability. The kind of phase transition previously found by us for the one-mode Dicke model with the rotating-wave approximation persists in the general multimode case.
In this thesis, we present and discuss the quantum statistical foundations of relativistic hydrodynamics with special emphasis on the entropy current. We show that it is possible to provide a rigorous definition for this quantity in the framework of relativistic quantum statistical mechanics and we put forward a general method to calculate it at local thermodynamic equilibrium. The method is based on the proof of existence of the thermodynamic potential current, a usually tacitly understood hypothesis. We then apply the method for the entropy current to the study of two different systems. The first system is a relativistic quantum fluid at global thermodynamic equilibrium, phenomenologically related to the quark-gluon plasma and, from a quantum field theoretical standpoint, to the Unruh effect. The second systems is a relativistic quantum fluid with boost invariance, also related to the quark-gluon plasma and of great interest as the first solvable system out of equilibrium. The thermal expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor as well as the entropy current are calculated for both systems, and renormalization is discussed.
Statistical mechanics is often taken to be the paradigm of a successful inter-theoretic reduction, which explains the high-level phenomena by using the fundamental theories of physics together with some auxiliary hypotheses. The central idea of statistical mechanics is that in order to account for the thermodynamic regularities only partial information about the microstates is needed, concerning some macrovariables of them, that is, concerning the fact that they belong to certain macrostates in which all the microstates share the same macrovariables. An important example of a thermodynamic property, which needs to be explained in quantum statistical mechanics, is that of being in thermal equilibrium. The thermodynamic law of approach to equilibrium says that systems, prepared in non-equilibrium states, will invariably evolve to equilibrium states fixed by the constraints on these systems, and remain in them indefinitely.
In this thesis, we study the interaction of a first-quantized atomic system with the quantum electromagnetic field within the context of relativistic quantum information (RQI). To that end, we examine common classes of Hamiltonians -- in particular, the dipolar coupling model as well as scalar field analogues (Unruh-DeWitt models) -- for their applicability in RQI setups. Firstly, we investigate how quantum randomness generation based on unbiased measurements on an atom can get compromised by an adversary that has access to the electromagnetic field. We show that preparing the atom in the ground state in the presence of no field excitations is, in general, not the best choice to generate randomness. Secondly, at the study of light-matter interactions inside optical cavities, we show that frequently employed approximations, such as the single-mode approximation and dimensional reduction, fail for relativistic regimes but can be already ill-behaved for non-relativistic scenarios. In particular, we show how approximating a very long and thin cavity by a one-dimensional system can be understood by recasting the D+1 dimensional quantum field inside the cavity as an infinite sum of massive 1+1 dimensional fields. The dimensional reduction approximation can subsequently be identified with ignoring all but one of these subfields or, equivalently, with a change of the atomic localization. Up to this point, we have treated the atomic center of mass classically -- a feature that is shared by usual Hamiltonians in RQI and quantum optics. We therefore revisit the interaction of atoms and light by considering all atomic degrees of freedom to be quantum. Further, we discuss subtleties with respect to the gauge nature of light and the effect that multipole approximations have. This allows us to connect the multipolar Hamiltonian with the common effective models of quantum optics and relativistic quantum information. In particular, we discuss the influence of atomic center-of-mass delocalization and the presence of the so-called Roentgen term. Significantly, Unruh-DeWitt models fail to account for the entangling interaction between all atomic and field degrees of freedom, and we present then a scalar analogue of the Roentgen term. Finally, we demonstrate how the usual dipole model preserves covariance when considering atoms on relativistic trajectories and how this model can be used as a qualitative means to study RQI scenarios.
We construct an exactly solvable relativistic model that embeds the anomalous inverse-square interaction into a non-Hermitian Klein-Gordon field theory through a purely imaginary, scale-invariant scalar potential. The stationary field equation reduces to an inverse-square Schrodinger-type problem with a quadratic spectral parameter. Imposing a strictly outgoing boundary condition at the singularity-interpreted as irreversible absorption-selects a unique physical realization and converts the fall-to-the-center instability into a discrete, log-periodic spectrum of complex energies. The resulting decay rates exhibit universal geometric spacing, determined solely by the anomalous scaling exponent and insensitive to microscopic short-distance regularization. This structure defines an emergent kinematic energy scale that controls dissipative dynamics and provides a minimal analytic framework for studying scale anomaly, boundary-condition-induced non-Hermiticity, and quantized dissipation in relativistic open quantum systems.