Quantum Physics Reveals a Limit on Thermalization Speed– www.techexplorist.com

Leave a hot cup of coffee on the table, and it gradually cools. Put a bottle of milk in the refrigerator and, given enough time, it reaches the same temperature as everything around it.

This everyday process, known as thermalization, is one of nature’s most universal behaviors. No matter how complex a system is, it eventually settles into equilibrium. While there is no doubt about whether or not systems will settle into equilibrium, physicists have been trying to answer the question of how quickly systems will reach this state for many years.

A new study suggests there is a fundamental limit.

Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, along with colleagues in Austria and Switzerland, have shown that quantum mechanics itself imposes a universal speed limit on thermalization. Their findings indicate that no physical system can reach thermal equilibrium faster than a timescale set by a handful of fundamental constants.