Classical microscopic theory of dispersion, emission and absorption of light in dielectrics

This paper is a continuation of a recent one in which, apparently for the first time, the existence of polaritons in ionic crystals was proven in a microscopic electrodynamic theory. This was obtained through an explicit computation of the dispersion curves. Here the main further contribution consists in studying electric susceptibility, from which the spectrum can be inferred. We show how susceptibility is obtained by the Green--Kubo methods of Hamiltonian statistical mechanics, and give for it a concrete expression in terms of time--correlation functions. As in the previous paper, here too we work in a completely classical framework, in which the electrodynamic forces acting on the charges are all taken into account, both the retarded forces and the radiation reaction ones. So, in order to apply the methods of statistical mechanics, the system has to be previously reduced to a Hamiltonian one. This is made possible in virtue of two global properties of classical electrodynamics, namely, the Wheeler--Feynman identity and the Ewald resummation properties, the proofs of which were already given for ordered system. The second contribution consists in formulating the theory in a completely general way, so that in principle it applies also to disordered systems such as glasses, or liquids or gases, provided the two general properties mentioned above continue to hold. A first step in this direction is made here by providing a completely general proof of the Wheeler--Feynman identity, which is shown to be the counterpart of a general causality property of classical electrodynamics. Finally it is shown how a line spectrum can appear at all in classical systems, as a counterpart of suitable stability properties of the motions, with a broadening due to a coexistence of chaoticity

Theoretical thermodynamic analysis of a closed-cycle process for the conversion of heat into electrical energy by means of a distiller and an electrochemical cell

We analyse a device aimed at the conversion of heat into electrical energy, based on a closed cycle in which a distiller generates two solutions at different concentrations, and an electrochemical cell consumes the concentration difference, converting it into electrical current. We first study an ideal model of such a process. We show that, if the device works at a single fixed pressure (i.e. with a ``single effect''), then the efficiency of the conversion of heat into electrical power can approach the efficiency of a reversible Carnot engine operating between the boiling temperature of the concentrated solution and that of the pure solvent. When two heat reservoirs with a higher temperature difference are available, the overall efficiency can be incremented by employing an arrangement of multiple cells working at different pressures (``multiple effects''). We find that a given efficiency can be achieved with a reduced number of effects by using solutions with a high boiling point elevation.Comment: The following article has been submitted to Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. After it is published, it will be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jrs

Relaxation times for Hamiltonian systems

Usually, the relaxation times of a gas are estimated in the frame of the Boltzmann equation. In this paper, instead, we deal with the relaxation problem in the frame of the dynamical theory of Hamiltonian systems, in which the definition itself of a relaxation time is an open question. We introduce a lower bound for the relaxation time, and give a general theorem for estimating it. Then we give an application to a concrete model of an interacting gas, in which the lower bound turns out to be of the order of magnitude of the relaxation times observed in dilute gases.Comment: 26 page

Relaxation times and ergodicity properties in a realistic ionic--crystal model, and the modern form of the FPU problem

It is well known that Gibbs' statistical mechanics is not justified for systems presenting long-range interactions, such as plasmas or galaxies. In a previous work we considered a realistic FPU-like model of an ionic crystal (and thus with long-range interactions), and showed that it reproduces the experimental infrared spectra from 1000 K down to 7 K, provided one abandons the Gibbs identification of temperature in terms of specific kinetic energy, at low temperatures. Here we investigate such a model in connection with its ergodicity properties. The conclusion we reach is that at low temperatures ergodicity does not occur, and thus the Gibbs prescriptions are not dynamically justified, up to geological time scales. We finally give a preliminary result indicating how the so-called `nonclassical' q-statistics show up in the realistic ionic-crystal model. How to formulate a consistent statistical mechanics, with the corresponding suitable identification of temperature in such nonergodicity conditions, remains an open problem, which apparently constitutes the modern form of the FPU problem