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Calendar of Physics Talks Vienna
| What happens to entropy production when conserved quantities fail to commute |
| Speaker: | Nicole Yunger Halpern (University of Maryland) |
| Abstract: | We extend entropy production to a deeply quantum regime involving noncommuting conserved
quantities. Consider a unitary transporting conserved quantities (“charges”) between two systemsinitialized in thermal states. Three common formulae model the entropy produced. They respec-tively cast entropy as an extensive thermodynamic variable, as an information-theoretic
uncertainty measure, and as a quantifier of irreversibility. Often, the charges are assumed to
commute with each other (e.g., energy and particle number). Yet quantum charges can fail to
commute. Noncom- mutation invites generalizations, which we posit and justify, of the three
formulae. Charges’ non- commutation, we find, breaks the formulae’s equivalence. Furthermore, different formulae quantify different physical effects of charges’ noncommutation on entropyproduction. For instance, entropy production can signal contextuality |
| Date: | Tue, 11.07.2023 |
| Time: | 15:00 |
| Duration: | 45 min |
| Location: | ZE 01-1 |
| Contact: | Marcus Huber |
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