After recapitulating the covariant formalism of equilibrium statistical
mechanics in special relativity and extending it to the case of a non-vanishing
spin tensor, we show that the relativistic stress-energy tensor at
thermodynamical equilibrium can be obtained from a functional derivative of the
partition function with respect to the inverse temperature four-vector \beta.
For usual thermodynamical equilibrium, the stress-energy tensor turns out to be
the derivative of the relativistic thermodynamic potential current with respect
to the four-vector \beta, i.e. T^{\mu \nu} = - \partial \Phi^\mu/\partial
\beta_\nu. This formula establishes a relation between stress-energy tensor and
entropy current at equilibrium possibly extendable to non-equilibrium
hydrodynamics.Comment: 4 pages. Final version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
