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We address in this work the problem of minimizing quantum entropies under local constraints. We suppose that macroscopic quantities, such as the particle density, current, and kinetic energy, are fixed at each point of Rd and look for a density operator over L2(Rd), minimizing an entropy functional. Such minimizers are referred to as local Gibbs states. This setting is in contrast with the classical problem of prescribing global constraints, where the total number of particles, total current, and total energy in the system are fixed. The question arises, for instance, in the derivation of fluid models from quantum dynamics. We prove, under fairly general conditions, that the entropy admits a unique constrained minimizer. Due to a lack of compactness, the main difficulty in the proof is to show that limits of minimizing sequences satisfy the local energy constraint. We tackle this issue by introducing a simpler auxiliary minimization problem and by using a monotonicity argument involving the entropy.

We study in this work the so-called "instantaneous time mirrors" in the context of surface plasmons. The latter are associated with high frequency waves at the surface of a conducting sheet. Instantaneous time mirrors were introduced in [3], with the idea that singular perturbations in the time variable in a wave-type equation create a time-reversed focusing wave. We consider the time-dependent three-dimensional Maxwell's equations, coupled to Drude's model for the description of the surface current. The time mirror is modeled by a sudden, strong, change in the Drude weight of the electrons on the sheet. Our goal is to characterize the time-reversed wave, in particular to quantify the quality of refocusing. We establish that the latter depends on the distance of the source to the sheet, and on some physical parameters such as the relaxation time of the electrons. We also show that, in addition to the plasmonic wave, the time mirror generates a free propagating wave that offers, contrary to the surface wave, some resolution in the direction orthogonal to the sheet. Blurring effects due to non-instantaneous mirrors are finally investigated.