Quantum Thermodynamics

Background.- Basics of Quantum Mechanics.- Basics of Thermodynamics and Statistics.- Brief Review of Pertinent Concepts.- Equilibrium.- The Program for the Foundation of Thermodynamics.- Outline of the Present Approach.- Dynamics and Averages in Hilbert Space.- Typicality of Observables and States.- System and Environment.- The Typical Reduced State of the System.- Entanglement, Correlations and Local Entropy.- Generic Spectra of Large Systems.- Temperature.- Pressure and Adiabatic Processes.- Quantum Mechanical and Classical State Densities.- Equilibration in Model Systems.- Non-Equilibrium.- Brief Review of Relaxation and Transport Theories.- Projection Operator Techniques and Hilbert Space Average Method.- Finite Systems as Thermostats.- Projective Approach to Dynamical Transport.- Open System Approach to Transport.- Applications and Models.- Purity and Local Entropy in Product Hilbert Space.- Observability of Intensive Variables.- Observability of Extensive Variables.- Quantum Thermodynamic Processes.

From the reviews of the second edition:

"The aim of this textbook is to show how thermodynamic behavior can emerge for a given finite quantum system. ... The book is written in a conceptually simple language, the focus being rather on the careful interpretation of the concepts at hand and their illustrations on model systems. ... presents some applications to model systems, which allows one to illustrate more precisely previously introduced notions." (Gabriel Stoltz, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2011 f)

"This book introduces into the emergent field of the application of thermodynamics to describe phenomena arising with open quantum systems which consist in one or few particles. ... A clue of this book is that ergodicity or mixing are replaced by a kind of typicality which is introduced and used as a basic concept to define equilibrium. ... This is a heuristic approach and the results derived show how it works well." (K.-E. Hellwig, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1221, 2011)