Summary
It is demonstrated that the density operator for a system in equilibrium with a heat reservoir can be expressed in canonical form provided that the dynamical behavior of the system is characterized by a unitary time transformation. The system is considered to be in thermal equilibrium with a large but not infinite volume of dilute monatomic gas. The combination of the two systems, considered as a closed system, is shown to be microcanonical. Consequently the individual operators will be canonical.
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References
L. E. Beghian:Nuovo Cimento B,107, 141 (1992).
L. E. Beghian:Nuovo Cimento B,107, 1437 (1992).
H. J. Kreuzer:Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and its Statistical Foundations (Clarendon, Oxford, 1981), p. 228.
R. C. Tolman:The Principles of Statistical Mechanics (Oxford University Press, London, 1962), p. 550.
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Beghian, L.E. A generalized derivation of the canonical distribution. Il Nuovo Cimento B 108, 801–804 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02741878
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02741878