期刊
ENTROPY
卷 17, 期 2, 页码 772-789出版社
MDPI AG
DOI: 10.3390/e17020772
关键词
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资金
- Centre for Quantum Technology
- Foundational Questions Institute
There is a well-known analogy between statistical and quantum mechanics. In statistical mechanics, Boltzmann realized that the probability for a system in thermal equilibrium to occupy a given state is proportional to exp(-E/kT ), where E is the energy of that state. In quantum mechanics, Feynman realized that the amplitude for a system to undergo a given history is proportional to exp(-S/ih), where S is the action of that history. In statistical mechanics, we can recover Boltzmann's formula by maximizing entropy subject to a constraint on the expected energy. This raises the question: what is the quantum mechanical analogue of entropy? We give a formula for this quantity, which we call quantropy. We recover Feynman's formula from assuming that histories have complex amplitudes, that these amplitudes sum to one and that the amplitudes give a stationary point of quantropy subject to a constraint on the expected action. Alternatively, we can assume the amplitudes sum to one and that they give a stationary point of a quantity that we call free action, which is analogous to free energy in statistical mechanics. We compute the quantropy, expected action and free action for a free particle and draw some conclusions from the results.
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