Master equations for Wigner functions with spontaneous collapse and their relation to thermodynamic irreversibility

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Master equations for Wigner functions with spontaneous collapse and their relation to thermodynamic irreversibility
المؤلفون: Vrugt, Michael te, Tóth, Gyula I., Wittkowski, Raphael
المصدر: Journal of Computational Electronics 20, 2209-2231 (2021)
سنة النشر: 2021
المجموعة: Mathematics
Condensed Matter
Mathematical Physics
Physics (Other)
Quantum Physics
مصطلحات موضوعية: Quantum Physics, Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics, Mathematical Physics, Physics - Computational Physics, Physics - History and Philosophy of Physics
الوصف: Wigner functions, allowing for a reformulation of quantum mechanics in phase space, are of central importance for the study of the quantum-classical transition. A full understanding of the quantum-classical transition, however, also requires an explanation for the absence of macroscopic superpositions to solve the quantum measurement problem. Stochastic reformulations of quantum mechanics based on spontaneous collapses of the wavefunction are a popular approach to this issue. In this article, we derive the dynamic equations for the four most important spontaneous collapse models - Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) theory, continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model, Di\'osi-Penrose model, and dissipative GRW model - in the Wigner framework. The resulting master equations are approximated by Fokker-Planck equations. Moreover, we use the phase-space form of GRW theory to test, via molecular dynamics simulations, David Albert's suggestion that the stochasticity induced by spontaneous collapses is responsible for the emergence of thermodynamic irreversibility. The simulations show that, for initial conditions leading to anti-thermodynamic behavior in the classical case, GRW-type perturbations do not lead to thermodynamic behavior. Consequently, the GRW-based equilibration mechanism proposed by Albert is not observed.
Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures
نوع الوثيقة: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1007/s10825-021-01804-6
URL الوصول: http://arxiv.org/abs/2106.00137
رقم الأكسشن: edsarx.2106.00137
قاعدة البيانات: arXiv
الوصف
DOI:10.1007/s10825-021-01804-6