Principles of classical statistical mechanics: A perspective from the notion of complementarity

Abstract

Quantum mechanics and classical statistical mechanics are two physical theories that share several analogies in their mathematical apparatus and physical foundations. In particular, classical statistical mechanics is hallmarked by the complementarity between two descriptions that are unified in thermodynamics: (i) the parametrization of the system macrostate in terms of mechanical macroscopic observables $I=\{I^i\}$; and (ii) the dynamical description that explains the evolution of a system towards the thermodynamic equilibrium. As expected, such a complementarity is related to the uncertainty relations of classical statistical mechanics $\Delta I^i\Delta {\eta }_i\ge k$. Here, $k$ is the Boltzmann's constant, ${\eta }_i=\partial \mathcal{S}(I|\theta )/\partial I^i$ are the restituting generalized forces derived from the entropy $\mathcal{S}(I|\theta )$ of a closed system, which is found in an equilibrium situation driven by certain control parameters $\theta =\{{\theta }^{\alpha }\}$. These arguments constitute the central ingredients of a reformulation of classical statistical mechanics from the notion of complementarity. In this new framework, Einstein postulate of classical fluctuation theory $dp(I|\theta )\sim \exp [\mathcal{S}(I|\theta )/k]dI$ appears as the correspondence principle between classical statistical mechanics and thermodynamics in the limit $k\to 0$, while the existence of uncertainty relations can be associated with the non-commuting character of certain operators.

8 pages, no figure; elsart style. Version accepted in Annals of Physics

References in corpus (3)

• A Hamilton-Jacobi Formalism for Thermodynamics
• Quantization of Contact Manifolds and Thermodynamics
• Thermodynamic fluctuation relation for temperature and energy

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