Heating, Cooling, and Equilibration of an Interacting Many-Fermion System

Abstract

We discuss the process of equilibrium’s attainment in an interacting many-fermions system linked to a heat reservoir, whose temperature T is subject to a short-time disturbance of total duration 2 τ . In this time-interval, its temperature increases up to a maximum value , cooling off afterward (also gradually) to its original value T M . The process is described by a typical master equation that leads eventually to equilibration. We discuss how the equilibration process depends upon 1) the system’s fermion-number, 2) the fermion-fermion interaction’s strength V , 3) the disturbance duration 2 τ , and finally 4) the maximum number of equations N of the master equation.