Local entropy of a nonequilibrium fermion system

Charles A. Stafford, Abhay Shastry

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The local entropy of a nonequilibrium system of independent fermions is investigated and analyzed in the context of the laws of thermodynamics. It is shown that the local temperature and chemical potential can only be expressed in terms of derivatives of the local entropy for linear deviations from local equilibrium. The first law of thermodynamics is shown to lead to an inequality, not equality, for the change in the local entropy as the nonequilibrium state of the system is changed. The maximum entropy principle (second law of thermodynamics) is proven: a nonequilibrium distribution has a local entropy less than or equal to a local equilibrium distribution satisfying the same constraints. It is shown that the local entropy of the system tends to zero when the local temperature tends to zero, consistent with the third law of thermodynamics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number092324
JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
Volume146
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 7 2017

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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