Calculation of the limiting Gibbs states for weakly coupled macroscopic quantum systems with application to the Josephson oscillator (Q1089688)

The thermodynamic equilibrium states (called ''Gibbs states'') are calculated for two weakly coupled long range interacting quantum lattice systems in the thermodynamic limit. Since the weak coupling energy remains uniformly bounded for all volumes, its specific value tends to zero and does not show up in the specific free energy. Nevertheless, as is shown by the combination of the perturbation theory for \(W^*\)-dynamical systems (developed by H. Araki) with estimation techniques of the thermodynamic limit, the interaction energy plays an important role in the central decomposition of the limiting Gibbs states in the case of spontaneous symmetry break down. This is in particular demonstrated for two weakly coupled superconductors, where the weak Cooper pair exchange leads to a weight in the central decomposition and thus to a modification of the SU(2)\(\times SU(2)\) Haar measure. That this mechanism is basic for the microscopic explanation of the Josephson effect is made explicit in a paper of the reviewer and the author in J. Math. Phys. 27, 1082-1092 (1986; Zbl 0608.46051)]. The perturbation technique used in the reviewed paper has now been generalized to interactions with unbounded Boson field operators and will soon be published.