Comparison of the non-equilibrium predictions of Intrinsic Quantum Thermodynamics at the atomistic level with experimental evidence

Abstract

Theoretical predictions from Intrinsic Quantum Thermodynamics (IQT) are compared to published experimental findings in order to examine whether or not calculations using IQT are consistent with experimental data. IQT makes the assertion that entropy is an intrinsic property of matter in the same way that inertial mass, energy, and momentum are and must, thus, exist even for single particles. Entropy as defined by IQT is a measure of the distribution of a system's internal energy at any given instant of time amongst the available internal degrees of freedom, i.e., the energy eigenlevels of the system. In this paper, it is shown that IQT models the internal relaxation of a 5-level rubidium system in a way that is consistent with the experimental data available in the literature. In addition, other experimental data found in the literature is compared with results obtained from the equation of motion of IQT that allows for heat interactions. It is shown that the decay of so-called "cat states" for single ions that are contained in Paul traps and that interact with a heat reservoir is also consistent with the calculations made using the theory of IQT. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.