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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Statistical mechanics from relational complex time with a pure state

Sebastian Gemsheim* and Jan M. Rost

  • *sebgem@protonmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 109, L121701 – Published 3 June, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.L121701

Abstract

Thermodynamics and its quantum counterpart are traditionally described with statistical ensembles. Canonical typicality has related statistical mechanics for a system to ensembles of global energy eigenstates of a system and its environment, analyzing their cardinality. We show that the canonical density for a system emerges from a maximally entangled global state of system and environment through relational complex time evolution between system and environment without the need to maximize the entropy or to count states.

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References (12)

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Phys. Rev. D 109, L121701– Published 3 June, 2024
  • Received 12 April 2024
  • Accepted 7 May 2024
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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