Paper 3, Section II, A

Statistical Physics | Part II, 2020

Starting with the density of electromagnetic radiation modes in k\mathbf{k}-space, determine the energy EE of black-body radiation in a box of volume VV at temperature TT.

Using the first law of thermodynamics show that

EVT=TPTVP\left.\frac{\partial E}{\partial V}\right|_{T}=\left.T \frac{\partial P}{\partial T}\right|_{V}-P

By using this relation determine the pressure PP of the black-body radiation.

[You are given the following:

(i) The mean number of photons in a radiation mode of frequency ω\omega is 1eω/T1\frac{1}{e^{\hbar \omega / T}-1},

(ii) 1+124+134+=π4901+\frac{1}{2^{4}}+\frac{1}{3^{4}}+\cdots=\frac{\pi^{4}}{90},

(iii) You may assume PP vanishes with TT more rapidly than linearly, as T0T \rightarrow 0. ]

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