Extended thermodynamics and superfluidity (Q760283)

The authors consider again the field equations of extended thermodynamics proposed by \textit{I. S. Liu} and \textit{I. Müller} [see the review above (Zbl 0554.76014)] and accept the linear constitutive equations suggested in that paper (equations which include the thermal equation of state of a monoatomic gas, known from developments in statistical mechanics). They proceed to consider the case of a strongly degenerate Bose gas with Bose- Einstein condensation; in that case the equation of state involves the product of density \(\rho\) by the fraction of non-condensed matter rather than \(\rho\) and also a certain parameter \(\alpha\) vanishes (notice that the letter \(\mu\) is used both for viscosity and for atomic mass). Inspired by known properties of liquid helium the authors add the hypotheses that: (i) the stress reduces to a pressure, (ii) there is no dissipation, (iii) the fluid is incompressible. The resulting special case is highly singular, with some coefficient vanishing and others going to infinity; nevertheless the authors manage to derive exactly the Landau equation for the temperature, an equation that admits waves as solutions. This very interesting result shows that extended thermodynamics of a single gas offers an alternative to Landau's mixture theory of superfluid helium.