Paper detail

Quantum Equilibration under Constraints and Transport Balance

For open quantum systems coupled to a thermal bath at inverse temperature $β$, it is well known that under the Born-, Markov-, and secular approximations the system density matrix will approach the thermal Gibbs state with the bath inverse temperature $β$. We generalize this to systems where there exists a conserved quantity (e.g., the total particle number), where for a bath characterized by inverse temperature $β$ and chemical potential $μ$ we find equilibration of both temperature and chemical potential. For couplings to multiple baths held at different temperatures and different chemical potentials, we identify a class of systems that equilibrates according to a single hypothetical average but in general non-thermal bath, which may be exploited to generate desired non-thermal states. Under special circumstances the stationary state may be again be described by a unique Boltzmann factor. These results are illustrated by several examples.