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H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

We consider the H-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator through the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of potential in producing entropy is investigated in detail, and we found that including a barrier potential into a harmonic trap would lead to the thermalization of the s...

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Autores principales: Hsueh, Che-Hsiu, Cheng, Chi-Ho, Horng, Tzyy-Leng, Wu, Wen-Chin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9407129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36010827
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e24081163
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author Hsueh, Che-Hsiu
Cheng, Chi-Ho
Horng, Tzyy-Leng
Wu, Wen-Chin
author_facet Hsueh, Che-Hsiu
Cheng, Chi-Ho
Horng, Tzyy-Leng
Wu, Wen-Chin
author_sort Hsueh, Che-Hsiu
collection PubMed
description We consider the H-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator through the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of potential in producing entropy is investigated in detail, and we found that including a barrier potential into a harmonic trap would lead to the thermalization of the system, while a harmonic trap alone would not thermalize the system. During thermalization, Shannon entropy increases, which shows that a microscopic quantum system still obeys the macroscopic thermodynamics law. Meanwhile, initial coherent mechanical energy transforms to incoherent thermal energy during thermalization, which exhibiting the decoherence of an oscillating wave packet featured by a large decreasing of autocorrelation length. When reaching thermal equilibrium, the wave packet comes to a halt, with the density distributions both in position and momentum spaces well-fitted by a microcanonical ensemble of statistical mechanics.
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spelling pubmed-94071292022-08-26 H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator Hsueh, Che-Hsiu Cheng, Chi-Ho Horng, Tzyy-Leng Wu, Wen-Chin Entropy (Basel) Article We consider the H-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator through the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of potential in producing entropy is investigated in detail, and we found that including a barrier potential into a harmonic trap would lead to the thermalization of the system, while a harmonic trap alone would not thermalize the system. During thermalization, Shannon entropy increases, which shows that a microscopic quantum system still obeys the macroscopic thermodynamics law. Meanwhile, initial coherent mechanical energy transforms to incoherent thermal energy during thermalization, which exhibiting the decoherence of an oscillating wave packet featured by a large decreasing of autocorrelation length. When reaching thermal equilibrium, the wave packet comes to a halt, with the density distributions both in position and momentum spaces well-fitted by a microcanonical ensemble of statistical mechanics. MDPI 2022-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9407129/ /pubmed/36010827 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e24081163 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hsueh, Che-Hsiu
Cheng, Chi-Ho
Horng, Tzyy-Leng
Wu, Wen-Chin
H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title_full H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title_fullStr H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title_full_unstemmed H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title_short H-Theorem in an Isolated Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
title_sort h-theorem in an isolated quantum harmonic oscillator
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9407129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36010827
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e24081163
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