Joint ICTP/SISSA Statistical physics seminar: "Thermodynamics and the quantum stress-energy and spin tensor"
Starts 21 Nov 2012 16:00
Ends 21 Nov 2012 20:00
Central European Time
SISSA, Santorio Building, Room 128 (1st Floor)
In this seminar we show that thermodynamics is sensitive to the existence of a fundamental spin tensor, predicted by extensions of general relativity. In general, thermodynamics is not invariant by a change of the stress-energy tensor of a fundamental quantum field with a divergence transformation leaving the total energy, momentum and angular momentum unchanged. Among the quantities which are changed by such a transformation, there are densities at equilibrium with rotation and non-equilibrium ones like transport coefficients and total entropy. Therefore, at least in principle, it could be possible to probe the existence of a spin tensor with a thermodynamics experiment.