Irreversible behaviour of a gas owing to Unruh radiation

When gas molecules collide, they accelerate, and therefore encounter the Fulling-Davies-Unruh and Moore-DeWitt effects. The size of these effects is sufficient to randomize the motion of the gas molecules after about 1 nanosecond at standard temperature and pressure. Such observations show that quan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Author Steane, Andrew M
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 20.12.2023
Subjects
Physics - General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Physics - Quantum Physics
Quantum theory
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Summary:When gas molecules collide, they accelerate, and therefore encounter the Fulling-Davies-Unruh and Moore-DeWitt effects. The size of these effects is sufficient to randomize the motion of the gas molecules after about 1 nanosecond at standard temperature and pressure. Such observations show that quantum field theory modifies what is required to isolate a physical system sufficiently for its behaviour to be unitary. In practice the requirements are never satisfied exactly. Therefore the evolution of the observable universe is non-unitary and thermodynamically irreversible.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2312.12048