Related papers: Resolving the debate about proposed expressions fo…
Small systems consisting of a few particles are increasingly technologically relevant. In such systems, an intense debate in microcanonical statistical mechanics has been about the correctness of Boltzmann's surface entropy versus Gibbs'…
For more than 100 years, one of the central concepts in statistical mechanics has been the microcanonical ensemble, which provides a way of calculating the thermodynamic entropy for a specified energy. A controversy has recently emerged…
In recent papers, several authors have claimed that a definition of the thermodynamic entropy in terms of the logarithm of a volume in phase space, originally suggested by Gibbs, is the only valid definition. Arguing from the Gibbs entropy,…
The Gibbs entropy of a macroscopic classical system is a function of a probability distribution over phase space, i.e., of an ensemble. In contrast, the Boltzmann entropy is a function on phase space, and is thus defined for an individual…
The long standing contrast between Boltzmann's and Gibbs' approach to statistical thermodynamics has been recently rekindled by Dunkel and Hilbert [1], who criticize the notion of negative absolute temperature (NAT), as a misleading…
In a recent paper, Dunkel and Hilbert [Nature Physics 10, 67-72 (2014)] use an entropy definition due to Gibbs to provide a 'consistent thermostatistics' which forbids negative absolute temperatures. Here we argue that the Gibbs entropy…
Statistical formulations of thermodynamic entropy, such as those by Boltzmann and Gibbs, were originally developed for classical systems and are well understood in that context. However, the foundational aspects of quantum statistical…
The concept of negative temperature has recently received renewed interest in the context of debates about the correct definition of the thermodynamic entropy in statistical mechanics. Several researchers have identified the thermodynamic…
Attempts to establish microcanonical entropy as an adiabatic invariant date back to works of Gibbs and Hertz. More recently, a consistency relation based on adiabatic invariance has been used to argue for the validity of Gibbs (volume)…
A considerable body of experimental and theoretical work claims the existence of negative absolute temperatures in spin systems and ultra-cold quantum gases. Here, we clarify that such findings can be attributed to the use of a popular yet…
A question that is currently highly debated is whether the microcanonical entropy should be expressed as the logarithm of the phase volume (volume entropy, also known as the Gibbs entropy) or as the logarithm of the density of states…
This pedagogical comment highlights three misconceptions concerning the usefulness of the concept of negative temperature; being derived from the usual, often termed Boltzmann, definition of entropy. First, both the Boltzmann and Gibbs…
Very recently, the validity of the concept of negative temperature has been challenged by several authors since they consider Boltzmann's entropy (that allows negative temperatures) inconsistent from a mathematical and statistical point of…
The issue of the thermodynamics of a system of distinguishable particles is discussed in this paper. In constructing the statistical mechanics of distinguishable particles from the definition of Boltzmann entropy, it is found that the…
For a dynamical system far from equilibrium, one has to deal with empirical probabilities defined through time-averages, and the main problem is then how to formulate an appropriate statistical thermodynamics. The common answer is that the…
We analyze a gas of noninteracting fermions confined to a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential, with the aim of distinguishing between two proposed definitions of the thermodynamic entropy in the microcanonical ensemble, namely the…
The physical meaning of entropy is analyzed in the context of statistical, nuclear, atomic physics and cosmology. Only the microcanonical Boltzmann entropy leads to no contradictions in several simple, elementary and for thermodynamics…
The second Tisza-Callen postulate of equilibrium thermodynamics states that for any system exists a function of the system's extensive parameters, called entropy, defined for all equilibrium states and having the property that the values…
In classical Hamiltonian theories, entropy may be understood either as a statistical property of canonical systems, or as a mechanical property, that is, as a monotonic function of the phase space along trajectories. In classical mechanics,…
Thermodynamics makes definite predictions about the thermal behavior of macroscopic systems in and out of equilibrium. Statistical mechanics aims to derive this behavior from the dynamics and statistics of the atoms and molecules making up…