Concepts of phenomenological irreversible quantum thermodynamics II: time dependent statistical ensembles of bipartite systems

Abstract The wide-spread opinion is that original quantum mechanics is a reversible theory, but this statement is only true for undecomposed systems that are those systems for which sub-systems are out of consideration. Taking sub-systems into account, as it is by definition necessary for decomposed systems, the interaction Hamiltonians –which are absent in undecomposed systems– can be a source of irreversibility in decomposed systems. Thus, the following two-stage task arises: How to modify von Neumann’s equation of undecomposed systems so that irreversibility appears, and how this modification affects decomposed systems? The first step was already done in Muschik (“Concepts of phenomenological irreversible quantum thermodynamics: closed undecomposed Schottky systems in semi-classical description,” J. Non-Equilibrium Thermodyn., vol. 44, pp. 1–13, 2019) and is repeated below, whereas the second step to formulate a quantum thermodynamics of decomposed systems is performed here by modifying the von Neumann equations of the sub-systems by a procedure wich is similar to that of Lindblad’s equation (G. Lindblad, “On the generators of quantum dynamical semigroups,” Commun. Math. Phys., vol. 48, p. 119130, 1976), but different because the sub-systems interact with one another through partitions.