Local temperatures and voltages in quantum systems far from equilibrium

Abhay Shastry, Charles Allen Stafford

We show that a local measurement of temperature and voltage for a quantum system in steady state, arbitrarily far from equilibrium, with arbitrary interactions within the system, is unique when it exists. This is interpreted as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. We further derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a solution. In this regard, we find that a positive temperature solution exists whenever there is no net population inversion. However, when there is a net population inversion, we may characterize the system with a unique negative temperature. Voltage and temperature measurements are treated on an equal footing: They are simultaneously measured in a noninvasive manner, via a weakly coupled thermoelectric probe, defined by requiring vanishing charge and heat dissipation into the probe. Our results strongly suggest that a local temperature measurement without a simultaneous local voltage measurement, or vice versa, is a misleading characterization of the state of a nonequilibrium quantum electron system. These results provide a firm mathematical foundation for voltage and temperature measurements far from equilibrium.

Abhay Shastry, Charles Allen Stafford

Jonathan Meair, Justin P. Bergfield, Charles Allen Stafford +1 more

We show how the local temperature of out-of-equilibrium, quantum electron systems can be consistently defined with the help of an external voltage and temperature probe. We determine sufficient conditions under which the temperature measured by the probe (i) is independent of details of the system-probe coupling, (ii) is equal to the temperature obtained from an independent current-noise measurement, (iii) satisfies the transitivity condition expressed by the zeroth law of thermodynamics, and (iv) is consistent with Carnot's theorem. This local temperature therefore characterizes the system in the common sense of equilibrium thermodynamics, but remains well defined even in out-of-equilibrium situations with no local equilibrium.

Abhay Shastry, Justin P. Bergfield, Charles Allen Stafford

Charles Allen Stafford

A theory of local temperature measurement of an interacting quantum electron system far from equilibrium via a floating thermoelectric probe is developed. It is shown that the local temperature so defined is consistent with the zeroth, first, second, and third laws of thermodynamics, provided the probe-system coupling is weak and broadband. For non-broadband probes, the local temperature obeys the Clausius form of the second law and the third law exactly, but there are corrections to the zeroth and first laws that are higher order in the Sommerfeld expansion. The corrections to the zeroth and first laws are related, and can be interpreted in terms of the error of a nonideal temperature measurement. These results also hold for systems at negative absolute temperature.

Hermann Haken