Undergrad Entropic effects of the Uncertainty Principle?

[oknow]

Per the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, a particle does not have a precisely defined location. Does such uncertainty contribute to the transfer of thermal energy (i.e. entropy)? Is uncertainty the primary means for the transfer of thermal energy at the quantum level?

 

[gentzen]

It is rather the opposite, the uncertainty reduces the amount of information, and hence the amount of entropy. One way to get some feeling for this is to look at the Hermite functions. They are eigenfunctions of the Fourier transform, and allow you to nicely visualize how the volume increases (simulateneously in the spatial and Fourier domain) when you include more of them.

Planck's constant sort of gives you the unit for how that amount of information gets counted.

 

[oknow]

Thanks for your reply. I'm thinking of effects like quantum tunneling. alpha particle emission, current leakage from electronics, etc. in which particles escape their classical range limits. AFAIK, without uncertainty, those effects would not occur, and their corresponding transfer of thermal energy would not happen.