The entropy production of a nonequilibrium open system (Q888145)

The author considers an open system \(S\) under the influence of its environment \(R.\) The total system \( S\oplus R\) is characterized by the Hamiltonian \(H=H_S+H_R+\lambda H_{SR}\) and the statistical operator \(W(t)\). The open system \(S\) is described by a reduced statistical operator \(\rho(t)=\mathrm{tr}_RW(t)\) satisfying \(\partial\rho(t)/\partial t=-iL_S\rho(t)+\eta(t)\) with \(\eta(t)=-i\lambda \mathrm{tr}_S[L_{SR}W(t)]\) describing the influence of \(R\) upon \(S\), where \(L_SX=i[HS,X]\), \(h=1\). According to the author, the purpose of the present paper is to generalize the results to the case where the environment is not a reservoir and may linearly deviate from its initial state under the reaction from the open system.