No Arabic abstract
The Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory is an effective framework to describe transports and their fluctuations in classical out-of-equilibrium diffusive systems. Whether the Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory may be extended to the quantum realm and which form this extension may take is yet terra incognita but is a timely question. In this short introductory review, I discuss possible questions that a quantum version of the Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory could address and how analysing Quantum Simple Exclusion Processes yields pieces of answers to these questions.
Stationary non-equilibrium states describe steady flows through macroscopic systems. Although they represent the simplest generalization of equilibrium states, they exhibit a variety of new phenomena. Within a statistical mechanics approach, these states have been the subject of several theoretical investigations, both analytic and numerical. The macroscopic fluctuation theory, based on a formula for the probability of joint space-time fluctuations of thermodynamic variables and currents, provides a unified macroscopic treatment of such states for driven diffusive systems. We give a detailed review of this theory including its main predictions and most relevant applications.
We will discuss the link between scientific explanations and probabilities, specially in relationship with statistical mechanics and the derivation of macroscopic laws from microscopic ones.
A stochastic dynamics has a natural decomposition into a drift capturing mean rate of change and a martingale increment capturing randomness. They are two statistically uncorrelated, but not necessarily independent mechanisms contributing to the overall fluctuations of the dynamics, representing the uncertainties in the past and in the future. A generalized Einstein relation is a consequence solely because the dynamics being stationary; and the Green-Kubo formula reflects a balance between the two mechanisms. Equilibrium with reversibility is characterized by a novel covariance symmetry.
We examine the Hall conductivity of macroscopic two-dimensional quantum system, and show that the observed quantities can sometimes violate the fluctuation dissipation theorem (FDT), even in the linear response (LR) regime infinitesimally close to equilibrium. The violation can be an order of magnitude larger than the Hall conductivity itself at low temperature and in strong magnetic field, which are accessible in experiments. We further extend the results to general systems and give a necessary condition for such large-scale violation to happen. This violation is a genuine quantum phenomenon that appears on a macroscopic scale. Our results are not only bound to the development of the fundamental issues of nonequilibrium physics, but the idea is also meaningful for practical applications, since the FDT is widely used for the estimation of noises from the LRs.
Stochastic entropy production, which quantifies the difference between the probabilities of trajectories of a stochastic dynamics and its time reversals, has a central role in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. In the theory of probability, the change in the statistical properties of observables can be represented by a change in the probability measure. We consider operators on the space of probability measure that induce changes in the statistical properties of a process, and formulate entropy productions in terms of these change-of-probability-measure (CPM) operators. This mathematical underpinning of the origin of entropy productions allows us to achieve an organization of various forms of fluctuation relations: All entropy productions have a non-negative mean value, admit the integral fluctuation theorem, and satisfy a rather general fluctuation relation. Other results such as the transient fluctuation theorem and detailed fluctuation theorems then are derived from the general fluctuation relation with more constraints on the operator. We use a discrete-time, discrete-state-space Markov process to draw the contradistinction among three reversals of a process: time reversal, protocol reversal and the dual process. The properties of their corresponding CPM operators are examined, and the domains of validity of various fluctuation relations for entropy productions in physics and chemistry are revealed. We also show that our CPM operator formalism can help us rather easily extend other fluctuations relations for excess work and heat, discuss the martingale properties of entropy productions, and derive the stochastic integral formulas for entropy productions in constant-noise diffusion process with Girsanov theorem. Our formalism provides a general and concise way to study the properties of entropy-related quantities in stochastic thermodynamics and information theory.