Spontaneous Torque on an Inhomogeneous Chiral Body out of Thermal Equilibrium

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Milton, Kimball A., Pourtolami, Nima, Kennedy, Gerard
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Milton, Kimball A.
Pourtolami, Nima
Kennedy, Gerard
author_facet Milton, Kimball A.
Pourtolami, Nima
Kennedy, Gerard
contents In a previous paper we showed that an inhomogeneous body in vacuum will experience a spontaneous force if it is not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. This is due to the asymmetric asymptotic radiation pattern such an object emits. We demonstrated this self-propulsive force by considering an expansion in powers of the electric susceptibility: A torque arises in first order, but only if the material constituting the body is nonreciprocal. No force arises in first order. A force does occur for bodies made of ordinary (reciprocal) materials in second order. Here we extend these considerations to the torque. As one would expect, a spontaneous torque will also appear on an inhomogeneous chiral object if it is out of thermal equilibrium with its environment. Once a chiral body starts to rotate, it will experience a small quantum frictional torque, but much more important, unless a mechanism is provided to maintain the nonequilibrium state, is thermalization: The body will rapidly reach thermal equilibrium with the vacuum, and the angular acceleration will essentially become zero. For a small, or even a large, inhomogeneous chiral body, a terminal angular velocity will result, which seems to be in the realm of observability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_03336
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spontaneous Torque on an Inhomogeneous Chiral Body out of Thermal Equilibrium
Milton, Kimball A.
Pourtolami, Nima
Kennedy, Gerard
Quantum Physics
High Energy Physics - Theory
In a previous paper we showed that an inhomogeneous body in vacuum will experience a spontaneous force if it is not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. This is due to the asymmetric asymptotic radiation pattern such an object emits. We demonstrated this self-propulsive force by considering an expansion in powers of the electric susceptibility: A torque arises in first order, but only if the material constituting the body is nonreciprocal. No force arises in first order. A force does occur for bodies made of ordinary (reciprocal) materials in second order. Here we extend these considerations to the torque. As one would expect, a spontaneous torque will also appear on an inhomogeneous chiral object if it is out of thermal equilibrium with its environment. Once a chiral body starts to rotate, it will experience a small quantum frictional torque, but much more important, unless a mechanism is provided to maintain the nonequilibrium state, is thermalization: The body will rapidly reach thermal equilibrium with the vacuum, and the angular acceleration will essentially become zero. For a small, or even a large, inhomogeneous chiral body, a terminal angular velocity will result, which seems to be in the realm of observability.
title Spontaneous Torque on an Inhomogeneous Chiral Body out of Thermal Equilibrium
topic Quantum Physics
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.03336