2011/11/30 by Gert-Ludwig Ingold, G. -L. Ingold · 19 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Anomaly (physics) #Function (biology) #Harmonic oscillator #Heat current #Partition function (quantum field theory) #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum system #Specific heat #Thermal #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjb/e2011-20930-2
published in The European Physical Journal B 85(1) (Springer Science+Business Media) · 7 pages, 1 figure, final version after one round of refereeing
arxiv created 2011/12/02 · openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · arxiv updated 2012/01/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A possible definition of the specific heat of open quantum systems is based on the reduced partition function of the system. For a free damped quantum particle, it has been found that under certain conditions, this specific heat can become negative at low temperatures. In contrast to the conventional approaches focusing on the system degree of freedom, here we concentrate on the changes induced in the environment when the system is coupled to it. Our analysis is carried out for an Ohmic environment consisting of harmonic oscillators and allows to identify the mechanism by which the specific heat becomes negative. Furthermore, the formal condition for the occurrence of a negative specific heat is given a physical interpretation in terms of the total mass of bath oscillators and the system mass.