Journal
ANNALS OF PHYSICS
Volume 327, Issue 7, Pages 1825-1851Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.aop.2011.12.016
Keywords
Dephasing; Equilibration; Bose condensation; Quantum Boltzmann equation; Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [DMR-010737]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Materials Research [1104383, 1004406] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The result that closed systems evolve toward equilibrium is derived entirely on the basis of quantum field theory for a model system, without invoking any of the common extra-mathematical notions of particle trajectories, collapse of the wave function, measurement, or intrinsically stochastic processes. The equivalent of the Stosszahlansatz of classical statistical mechanics is found, and has important differences from the classical version. A novel result of the calculation is that interacting many-body systems in the infinite volume limit evolve toward diagonal states (states with loss of all phase information) on the time scale of the interaction time. The connection with the onset of off-diagonal phase coherence in Bose condensates is discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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