Minimal length scales for the existence of local temperature

Abstract

We review a recent approach to determine the minimal spatial length scales on which local temperature exists. After mentioning an experiment where such considerations are of relevance, we first discuss the precise definition of the existence of local temperature and its physical relevance. The approach to calculate the length scales in question considers homogenous chains of particles with nearest neighbor interactions. The entire chain is assumed to be in a thermal equilibrium state and it is analyzed when such an equilibrium state at the same time exists for a local part of it. The result yields estimates for real materials, the liability of which is discussed in the sequel. We finally consider a possibility to detect the existence or non-existence of a local thermal state in experiment.

arXiv commentreview, 13 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Thermal transport measurements of individual multiwalled nanotubes
• Entanglement Properties of the Harmonic Chain
• Entanglement in Quantum Information Theory
• Existence of temperature on the nanoscale
• Gaussian quantum fluctuations in interacting many particle systems
• Multi-particle States in Spin-1 Chain System CsNiCl3
• Local Versus Global Thermal States: Correlations and the Existence of Local Temperatures
• Spectral densities and partition functions of modular quantum systems as derived from a central limit theorem
• Measurable Consequences of the Local Breakdown of the Concept of Temperature
• Proximity effect thermometer for local temperature measurements on mesoscopic samples
• Scaling behavior of interactions in a modular quantum system and the existence of local temperature
• Temperature dependence of single particle excitations in a S=1 chain: exact diagonalization calculations compared to neutron scattering experiments

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Strongly Interacting Polaritons in Coupled Arrays of Cavities
• A Coupled Quantum Otto Cycle
• Locality of temperature
• Strong photon non-linearities and photonic Mott insulators
• Local Temperatures Out of Equilibrium
• Coexistence of energy diffusion and local thermalization in nonequilibrium XXZ spin chains with integrability breaking
• Local temperature in quantum thermal states
• Temperature Dependent Energy Diffusion in Chaotic Spin Chains
• Thermalization at Low Temperatures via Weakly-Damped Multi-Site Baths
• Properties of thermal quantum states: locality of temperature, decay of correlations, and more
• Temperature dependence of energy transport in the ${\mathbb{Z}}_3$ chiral clock model
• Locally accurate tensor networks for thermal states and time evolution