Dynamics of the open BCS model

Abstract

The dynamics of the strong coupling BCS model, considered as an open system interacting with a thermal bath, is solved rigorously and explicitly in the weak coupling limit and in the infinite-volume limit. The BCS system goes from the normal phase to the ordered phase by bifurcation. Fluctuations around trajectories of intensive observables are Gaussian and Markovian. Thermodynamic phases are global attractors in the physical domain. Structural stability is discussed. The model provides an example of a nonequilibrium statistical mechanical system with phase transition whose irreversible macroscopic dynamics can be calculated exactly from the underlying Hamiltonian quantum mechanics.