Within the framework of relativistic quantum field theory, a novel method is established which allows to distinguish non-equilibrium states admitting locally a thermodynamic interpretation. The basic idea is to compare these states with global equilibrium states (KMS states) by means of local thermal observables. With the help of such observables, the states can be ordered into classes of increasing local thermal stability. Moreover, it is possible to identify states exhibiting certain specific thermal properties of interest, such as a definite local temperature or entropy density. The method is illustrated in a simple model describing the spatio-temporal evolution of a “big heat bang”. 1
We ask in which states, and for which local algebras, Galilean quantum fields have the Reeh-Schlieder property. The nets are generated by time-zero canonical fields on spatial regions and by the dynamics. The Bargmann mass over the charge of the field is a number operator for the time-zero fields, bounded from below by positivity of the energy and boost covariance, and Chaiken's theorem gives Galilean Fock rigidity: these fields form a direct sum of Fock representations, and the time-zero annihilation fields annihilate every translation-invariant vector. If the vacuum is the only vector invariant under spatial translations (not implied by the usual uniqueness axiom), the vacuum sector of the observable net is one-dimensional. No vector of finite mass is cyclic or separating for an algebra of a spatial region at fixed time. In the vacuum of Bose gases with bounded or Coulomb-type pair potentials (with Buchholz's renormalised dynamics if not H-stable), the fields of any region over any time interval generate all bounded operators. By contrast, a KMS state is cyclic and separating for the algebra of every region
B×I with temporal extent whenever the spatial algebras at all times generate the global algebra, as for free gases. For the free Schrödinger field in the vacuum, the thermal states of Bose and Fermi gases and the Fermi sea, fixed-time field algebras are type I factors, for which thermal vectors and the Fermi sea are separating but not cyclic, and every field algebra with temporal extent is the global one: type I in pure states, type III
1 in thermal states, with the grand-canonical dynamics as modular group. Galilean vacua are thus never separating for local algebras. For the free field the type of the algebras of regions with temporal extent depends on the state, and what is specifically relativistic is the locality of type III
1.