A nonconventional scenario for thermal equilibrium (Q2473328)

This paper presents a model for a nonuniform superconducting ring, supposedly at thermal equilibrium with a heat bath which to be some above its critical temperature. The ring encloses a magnetic flux that creates an asymmetry between the clockwise and counter-clockwise direction. First, it is assumed that the energy is described by the linearized Ginzburg-Landau model. The problem is discretized by dividing the superconducting loop into \(N\) segments of equal length. After discretization, this model involves only a few random variables and can be regarded analytically. The author considers four particular cases and obtains that heat flows from the bath to the ring at places where the cross-section is large and from the ring to the bath where the cross-section is small. This scenario is opposed to the thermodynamic concept of thermal equilibrium and to the Clausius statement of the second law. The author proposes three possible causes this contradiction, namely: (i) it is claimed that the second law of thermodynamics is not applicable to problems with the asymmetry considered, (ii) it is assumed that the space considered of the order parameter is not a legitimate phase space because the properties of electrodynamic fields in this case can not be probably translated to the order parameter in superconductivity, (iii) lack of self-consistency is possible in studied discretized model, because the quantities obtained are equal to the electric field and current only in the continuum limit but for small numbers \(N\) of segments considered they to be only approximations.