A precise formulation of the third law of thermodynamics

DOI10.1007/S10955-009-9693-5MaRDI QIDQ1024225zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Walter F. Wreszinski, E. Abdalla

Publication date 16 June 2009

Published in Journal of Statistical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0710.4918

zbMATH Keywords

entropyblack holesthermodynamicsadiabatic accessibilitythird law

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Black holes (83C57) Irreversible thermodynamics, including Onsager-Machlup theory (82B35) Galactic and stellar structure (85A15)

Abstract: The third law of thermodynamics is formulated precisely: all points of the state space of zero temperature $Gamm{a}_0$ are physically adiabatically inaccessible from the state space of a simple system. In addition to implying the unattainability of absolute zero in finite time (or "by a finite number of operations"), it admits as corollary, under a continuity assumption, that all points of $Gamm{a}_0$ are adiabatically equivalent. We argue that the third law is universally valid for all macroscopic systems which obey the laws of quantum mechanics and/or quantum field theory. We also briefly discuss why a precise formulation of the third law for black holes remains an open problem.

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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3160207 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3709038 (Why is no real title available?)
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Cited in

(5)

• Does the third law of thermodynamics hold in the quantum regime?
• Degenerated ground-states in a spin chain with pair interactions: a characterization by symbolic dynamics
• Principle of unattainability of absolute zero temperature, the third law of thermodynamics, and projective quantum measurements
• On ergodic states, spontaneous symmetry breaking and quasi-averages
• Bounded energy exchange as an alternative to the third law of thermodynamics

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