August 4th-7th, 2014
Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University
"What is equilibrium and how do we get there? An approach from isolated quantum systems"
Hal Tasaki (Gakushuin Univ.)
Although thermodynamics and statistical mechanics provide us with
almost complete descriptions of macroscopic systems in equilibrium,
their foundation, or more precisely, their logical relations to
microscopic Quantum physics have not been completely understood. Here
I will describe a view point (which is indeed quite old) that
"equilibrium" stands for properties shared by overwhelming majority of
states with a common energy. Then one will find that the phenomenon
of approach to equilibrium can be (at least intuitively) understood
quite naturally.
By formulating the problems in terms of isolated macroscopic quantum
systems, I will prove some theorems that demonstrate the plausibility
of the above picture. I will also discuss some results about the
time-scale necessary for thermalization.
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