Thermal time and TolmanEhrenfest effect: temperature as the speed of time - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Classical and Quantum Gravity Année : 2011

Thermal time and TolmanEhrenfest effect: temperature as the speed of time

Carlo Rovelli
Matteo Smerlak

Résumé

The notion of thermal time has been introduced as a possible basis for a fully general-relativistic thermodynamics. Here we study this notion in the restricted context of stationary spacetimes. We show that the Tolman-Ehrenfest effect (in a stationary gravitational field, temperature is not constant in space at thermal equilibrium) can be derived very simply by applying the equivalence principle to a key property of thermal time at equilibrium: temperature is the rate of thermal time with respect to proper time - the 'speed of (thermal) time '. Unlike other published derivations of the Tolman-Ehrenfest law, this one is free from any further dynamical assumption, thereby illustrating the physical import of the notion of thermal time.

Mots clés

Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
PEER_stage2_10.1088%2F0264-9381%2F28%2F7%2F075007.pdf (278.72 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-00686093 , version 1 (07-04-2012)

Identifiants

Citer

Carlo Rovelli, Matteo Smerlak. Thermal time and TolmanEhrenfest effect: temperature as the speed of time. Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2011, 28 (7), pp.75007. ⟨10.1088/0264-9381/28/7/075007⟩. ⟨hal-00686093⟩

Collections

PEER
86 Consultations
495 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More