Related papers: Comments on Negative Specific Heat in Astronomy, P…
Starting from Antonov's discovery that there is no maximum to the entropy of a gravitating system of point particles at fixed energy in a spherical box if the density contrast between centre and edge exceeds 709, we review progress in the…
We identify conditions for the presence of negative specific heat in non-relativistic self-gravitating systems and similar systems of attracting particles. The method used, is to analyse the Virial theorem and two soluble models of systems…
The concept of negative temperature (T < 0) is unique to quantum physics and describes systems that are hotter than any positive temperature system. For decades negative temperatures have been shown in a number of spin systems, but…
It is shown that there is no proof of negativity of specific heat of the system placed in thermostat. It is proved that for the system of particles placed in the thermostat and interacting with each other via uniform potential energy the…
Thermodynamics dictates that the specific heat of a system is strictly non-negative. However, in finite classical systems there are well known theoretical and experimental cases where this rule is violated, in particular finite atomic…
We show that systems with negative specific heat can violate the zeroth law of thermodynamics. By both numerical simulations and by using exact expressions for free energy and microcanonical entropy it is shown that if two systems with the…
We show that the vacuum (zero-point) energy of a low-temperature quantum liquid is a variable property which changes with the state of the system, in notable contrast to the static vacuum energy in solids commonly considered. We further…
The evaluation of the specific heat of an open, damped quantum system is a subtle issue. One possible route is based on the thermodynamic partition function which is the ratio of the partition functions of system plus bath and of the bath…
A possible definition of the specific heat of open quantum systems is based on the reduced partition function of the system. For a free damped quantum particle, it has been found that under certain conditions, this specific heat can become…
According to thermodynamics, the specific heat of Boltzmannian short-range interacting systems is a positive quantity. Less intuitive properties are instead displayed by systems characterized by long-range interactions. In that case, the…
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…
We suggest in this Letter that the Bekenstein-Hawking black hole entropy accounts for the degrees of freedom which are excited at low temperatures only and hence it leads to the negative specific heat. Taking into account the physical…
This work investigates how a conical singularity can affect the specific heat of systems. A free nonrelativistic particle confined to the lateral surface of a cone -- conical box -- is taken as a toy model. Its specific heat is determined…
The controversial existence of negative temperatures has stirred interesting debates that have reached the foundations of thermodynamics, including questions on the second law, the Carnot efficiency and the statistical definition of…
It has been widely believed that the Hawking temperature for a black hole is $uniquely$ determined by its metric and $positive$. But, I find that this does ``not'' seem to be true in the recently discovered black holes which include the…
Schmidt et al (Phys Rev Lett 86, 1191 (2001)) observe and analyze a negative specific heat in Na clusters. The analysis is done within the framework of Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium statistical mechanics. We argue that this is not the only…
It is now widely accepted that the concept of negative absolute temperature is real one and not just theoretical curiosity. In this brief report, by combining the formalism used in the statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, we have…
It is shown that negative heat capacity in nanoclusters is an artifact of applying equilibrium thermodynamic formalism on a small system trapped out of equilibrium in a particular structural motif representing only part of the energetically…
For students familiar with equilibrium statistical mechanics, the notion of a positive specific heat, being intimately related to the idea of stability, is both intuitively reasonable and mathematically provable. However, for system in…
In this comment we argue that negative absolute temperatures are a well-established concept for systems with bounded spectra. They are not only consistent with thermodynamics, but are even unavoidable for a consistent description of the…