Mesoscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamics for quantum systems

D. Bedeaux and P. Mazur

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2001, vol. 298, issue 1, 81-100

Abstract: An extension of the scheme of non-equilibrium thermodynamics developed previously is given for quantum mechanical systems. A master equation for the density matrix of the system follows from this scheme. Onsager relations are given and derived. Application to a spin system gives the Bloch equations. The application to a one-dimensional damped harmonic oscillator results in equations, which enable us to calculate the usual Green functions. For the last case we derive, as a new alternative, quantum mechanical Langevin equations. A new element, compared to the classical Langevin equations, is a random velocity. The correlation of the random velocity with the random force then results from the zero point motion of the oscillator. The application of mesoscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamics to these wellknown problems illustrates the usefullness of this method.

Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437101002230
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:298:y:2001:i:1:p:81-100

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(01)00223-0

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().