Internal temperature of quantum chaotic systems at the nanoscale and its detection by a microscopic thermometer
arXiv:1705.09824 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.96.032207
Abstract
The extent to which a temperature can be appropriately assigned to a small quantum system, as an internal property but not as a property of any large environment, is still an open problem. In this paper, a method is proposed for solving this problem, by which a studied system is coupled to a two-level system (probe) as a microscopic thermometer. For small quantum chaotic systems, we show that a temperature can be determined, the value of which is sensitive to neither the form, location, and strength of the probe-system coupling, nor the Hamiltonian and initial state of the probe. This temperature turns out to have the form of Boltzmann temperature.
8 pages, 4 figures
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