2009/02/23 by Michele Campisi, Peter Talkner, Peter Hänggi · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech #nlin.CD #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.102.210401
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 210401 (2009) · 4 pages
arxiv created 2009/02/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Based on the observation that the thermodynamic equilibrium free energy of an open quantum system in contact with a thermal environment can be understood as the difference between the free energy of the total system and that of the bare environment, the validity of the Crooks theorem and of the Jarzynski equality is extended to open quantum systems. No restrictions on the nature of the environment or on the strength of the coupling between system and environment need to be imposed. This free energy entering the Crooks theorem and the Jarzynski equality is closely related to the Hamiltonian of mean force that generalizes the classical statistical mechanical concept of the potential of mean force.