Violation of the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics in Systems with Negative Specific Heat

Abstract

We show that systems with negative specific heat can violate the zeroth law of thermodynamics. By both numerical simulations and by using exact expressions for free energy and microcanonical entropy it is shown that if two systems with the same intensive parameters but with negative specific heat are thermally coupled, they undergo a process in which the total entropy increases irreversibly. The final equilibrium is such that two phases appear, that is, the subsystems have different magnetizations and internal energies at temperatures which are equal in both systems, but that can be different from the initial temperature.

Physical Review Letters, 100, 120601 (2008)

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Statistical mechanics and dynamics of solvable models with long-range interactions
• Statistical Mechanics of Unbound Two Dimensional Self-Gravitating Systems
• Gravity and Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Classical Matter
• Getting hotter by heating less: How driven granular materials dissipate energy in excess
• Temperature gradients in equilibrium: small microcanonical systems in an external field
• An approach to the quasi-equilibrium state of a self-gravitating system