Global thermodynamics for heat-conducting fluids under weak gravity

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nakagawa, Naoko, Sasa, Shin-ichi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Nakagawa, Naoko
Sasa, Shin-ichi
author_facet Nakagawa, Naoko
Sasa, Shin-ichi
contents We study liquid-gas coexistence under gravity and heat conduction from the viewpoint of global thermodynamics. We construct a variational free-energy function for the fixed-global-temperature description and decompose it into two parts. The first has the same configurational form as the equilibrium weak-gravity free energy with gravity replaced by the effective gravity, and it determines the first-order configurational transition between the two separated liquid-gas arrangements. The second is a residual excess-latent-heat contribution that vanishes without heat conduction. Although it does not decide which separated liquid-gas arrangement is thermodynamically favored, this residual part is needed to derive the fundamental relation in the laboratory variables and to recover thermodynamic observables such as the spatially averaged pressure. The same residual contribution reshapes the barrier geometry, ridge/valley structure, and interfacial anomalies of the fixed-global-temperature free-energy landscape. Numerical examples based on the van der Waals model illustrate the resulting landscape structure, and estimates of experimental scales suggest a setup for detecting the effective-gravity inversion.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_31233
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Global thermodynamics for heat-conducting fluids under weak gravity
Nakagawa, Naoko
Sasa, Shin-ichi
Statistical Mechanics
We study liquid-gas coexistence under gravity and heat conduction from the viewpoint of global thermodynamics. We construct a variational free-energy function for the fixed-global-temperature description and decompose it into two parts. The first has the same configurational form as the equilibrium weak-gravity free energy with gravity replaced by the effective gravity, and it determines the first-order configurational transition between the two separated liquid-gas arrangements. The second is a residual excess-latent-heat contribution that vanishes without heat conduction. Although it does not decide which separated liquid-gas arrangement is thermodynamically favored, this residual part is needed to derive the fundamental relation in the laboratory variables and to recover thermodynamic observables such as the spatially averaged pressure. The same residual contribution reshapes the barrier geometry, ridge/valley structure, and interfacial anomalies of the fixed-global-temperature free-energy landscape. Numerical examples based on the van der Waals model illustrate the resulting landscape structure, and estimates of experimental scales suggest a setup for detecting the effective-gravity inversion.
title Global thermodynamics for heat-conducting fluids under weak gravity
topic Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31233