2004/05/31 by Bjorn Einarsson, Björn Einarsson · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #astro-ph #cond-mat.stat-mech #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2004.09.066
published as Phys.Lett. A332 (2004) 335-344 · 11 pages, 1 figure, Published version (including correlation between positive specific heat and singular points)
openalex publication_date 2004/10/12 · arxiv created 2005/02/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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 of attracting particles, and to map the sign of the specific heat for different combinations of the number of spatial dimensions of the system, D(≥ 2), and the exponent, ν(≠ 0), in the force potential, ϕ=Crν. Negative specific heat in such systems is found to be present exactly for ν=-1, at least for D ≥ 3. For many combinations of D and ν representing long-range forces, the specific heat is positive or zero, for both models and the Virial theorem. Hence negative specific heat is not caused by long-range forces as such. We also find that negative specific heat appears when ν is negative, and there is no singular point in a certain density distribution. A possible mechanism behind this is suggested.