Geometry of thermodynamic states

DOI10.1016/S0375-9601(98)00385-5MaRDI QIDQ1966762zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Dorje C. Brody, Lane P. Hughston

Publication date 8 March 2000

Published in Physics Letters. A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9706030

zbMATH Keywords

canonical distributiongeometric formalism for statistical estimationthermodynamic statesuncertainty relations

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Classical equilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82B05)

Abstract: A novel geometric formalism for statistical estimation is applied here to the canonical distribution of classical statistical mechanics. In this scheme thermodynamic states, or equivalently, statistical mechanical states, can be characterised concisely in terms of the geometry of a submanifold $calM$ of the unit sphere $calS$ in a real Hilbert space $calH$. The measurement of a thermodynamic variable then corresponds to the reduction of a state vector in $calH$ to an eigenstate, where the transition probability is the Boltzmann weight. We derive a set of uncertainty relations for conjugate thermodynamic variables in the equilibrium thermodynamic states. These follow as a consequence of a striking thermodynamic analogue of the Anandan-Aharonov relations in quantum mechanics. As a result we are able to provide a resolution to the controversy surrounding the status of `temperature fluctuations' in the canonical ensemble. By consideration of the curvature of the thermodynamic trajectory in its state space we are then able to derive a series of higher order variance bounds, which we calculate explicitly to second order.

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Cites work

• Generalised Heisenberg relations for quantum statistical estimation
• Geometry of quantum evolution
• Geometry of Quantum Statistical Inference
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 780717 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 815101 (Why is no real title available?)
• Informative geometry of probability spaces
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Cited in

(13)

• Geometric measure theory and the axioms of continuum thermodynamics
• Thermodynamics as a theory of measurement
• Geometrothermodynamic description of real gases using the law of corresponding states
• Geometry of basic statistical physics mapping
• Geometrical aspects and connections of the energy–temperature fluctuation relation
• Geometrization of statistical mechanics
• On the geometric structure of thermodynamics
• The Geometry of Some Thermodynamic Systems
• Thermodynamic geometry, transition between attractive and repulsive interactions and condensation of dual statistics
• On the geometrical representation of classical statistical mechanics
• Geometric quantum mechanics
• A mathematical modeling of n-state systems
• Geometrothermodynamics of black holes

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