Thermalisation

Article summary

In physics, thermalisation (or thermalization) is the process of physical bodies reaching thermal equilibrium through mutual interaction. In general, the natural tendency of a system is towards a state of equipartition of energy and uniform temperature that maximizes the system's entropy. Thermalisation, thermal equilibrium, and temperature are therefore important fundamental concepts within statistical physics, statistical mechanics, and thermodynamics; all of which are a basis for many other specific fields of scientific understanding and engineering application. Examples of thermalisation include: * the achievement of equilibrium in a plasma. * the process undergone by high-energy neutrons as they lose energy by collision with a moderator. * the process of heat or phonon emission by charge carriers in a solar cell, after a photon that exceeds the semiconductor band gap energy is absorbed. The hypothesis, foundational to most introductory textbooks treating quantum statistical mechanics, assumes that systems go to thermal equilibrium (thermalisation). The process of thermalisation erases local memory of the initial conditions. The eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis is a hypothesis about when quantum states will undergo thermalisation and why. Not all quantum states undergo thermalisation.…

Key claims

No claims recorded.

Discussion questions

1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

No sources recorded.