Local Temperatures Out of Equilibrium
arXiv:1910.05963 · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2019.10.003
Abstract
The temperature of a physical system is operationally defined in physics as "that quantity which is measured by a thermometer" weakly coupled to, and at equilibrium with the system. This definition is unique only at global equilibrium in view of the zeroth law of thermodynamics: when the system and the thermometer have reached equilibrium, the "thermometer degrees of freedom" can be traced out and the temperature read by the thermometer can be uniquely assigned to the system. Unfortunately, such a procedure cannot be straightforwardly extended to a system out of equilibrium, where local excitations may be spatially inhomogeneous and the zeroth law of thermodynamics does not hold. With the advent of several experimental techniques that attempt to extract a single parameter characterizing the degree of local excitations of a (mesoscopic or nanoscale) system out of equilibrium, this issue is making a strong comeback to the forefront of research. In this paper, we will review the difficulties to define a unique temperature out of equilibrium, the majority of definitions that have been proposed so far, and discuss both their advantages and limitations. We will then examine a variety of experimental techniques developed for measuring the non-equilibrium local temperatures under various conditions. Finally we will discuss the physical implications of the notion of local temperature, and present the practical applications of such a concept in a variety of nanosystems out of equilibrium.
Corrected version to Physics Reports
References in corpus (48)
- Direct observation of Anderson localization of matter-waves in a controlled disorder
- Energy Dissipation and Transport in Nanoscale Devices
- Heat Transport in low-dimensional systems
- Memory effects in complex materials and nanoscale systems
- Disorder Induced Localized States in Graphene
- Mechanical Control of Spin States in Spin-1 Molecules and the Underscreened Kondo Effect
- Direct Measurement of Room Temperature Non-diffusive Thermal Transport Over Micron Distances in a Silicon Membrane
- Thermal conductivity of suspended pristine graphene measured by Raman spectroscopy
- The second law, Maxwell's daemon and work derivable from quantum heat engines
- Performance of arsenene and antimonene double-gate MOSFETs from first principles
- Tuneable electronic properties in graphene
- Vibrational and electronic heating in nanoscale junctions
- Measuring entanglement entropy of a generic many-body system with a quantum switch
- Heat conduction in molecular transport junctions
- Temperature in and out of equilibrium: a review of concepts, tools and attempts
- Dynamical corrections to the DFT-LDA electron conductance in nanoscale systems
- Universal Scaling in Non-equilibrium Transport Through a Single-Channel Kondo Dot
- Magnon-phonon interactions in magnetic insulators
- Current-induced nonequilibrium vibrations in single-molecule devices
- Spatially-Resolved Temperature Measurements of Electrically-Heated Carbon Nanotubes
- Many-body theory of electronic transport in single-molecule heterojunctions
- Existence of temperature on the nanoscale
- Local effective dynamics of quantum systems: A generalized approach to work and heat
- Stochastic Time-Dependent Current-Density-Functional Theory
- Correlations in quantum thermodynamics: Heat, work, and entropy production
- Fourier's Law confirmed for a class of small quantum systems
- Information and entropy in quantum Brownian motion: Thermodynamic entropy versus von Neumann entropy
- Minimal length scales for the existence of local temperature
- Time-dependent versus static quantum transport simulations beyond linear response
- Entropy production and non-Markovian dynamical maps
- Vibrational cooling and thermoelectric response of nanoelectromechanical systems
- Local temperatures of strongly-correlated quantum dots out of equilibrium
- A single quantum dot as an optical thermometer for mK temperatures
- Stochastic time-dependent current-density functional theory: a functional theory of open quantum systems
- Electric-Field-control of spin rotation in bilayer graphene
- Crossover from ballistic to diffusive thermal transport in quantum Langevin dynamics study of a harmonic chain connected to self-consistent reservoirs
- ThermoElectric Transport Properties of a Chain of Quantum Dots with Self-Consistent Reservoirs
- Reconstructing Fourier's law from disorder in quantum wires
- Seebeck Coefficients in Nanoscale Junctions: Effects of Electron-vibration Scattering and Local Heating
- Local Temperatures and Heat Flow in Quantum Driven Systems
- Thermoelectric Corrections to Quantum Voltage Measurement
- The thermodynamic meaning of local temperature of nonequilibrium open quantum systems
- Nonequilibrium spin-dependent phenomena in mesoscopic superconductor-normal metal tunnel structures
- The fluctuation-dissipation relation in an Ising model without detailed balance
- DC four point resistance of a double barrier quantum pump
- Local entropy of a nonequilibrium fermion system
- Information compressibility, entropy production and approach to steady state in open systems
- Crossover from quantum to classical transport