Rotational Specific Heat and Half Quantum Numbers

The rotational specific heat of molecular hydrogen in the old quantum theory

The rotational specific heat of molecular hydrogen in the old quantum theory Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, 13–16 June 2006 Clayton Gearhart (St. John’s University, Minnesota, USA) “Astonishing successes” and “bitter disappointment”: Thus did the German physicist Fritz Reiche portray the state of quantum theory in his 1921 text. His words apply in miniature to early de...

The rotational specific heat of molecular hydrogen in the old quantum theory

Specific heat anomalies of open quantum systems.

The evaluation of the specific heat of an open damped quantum system is a subtle issue. One possible route is based on the thermodynamic partition function which is the ratio of the partition functions of system plus bath and of the bath alone. For the free damped particle it has been shown, however, that the ensuing specific heat may become negative for appropriately chosen environments. Being...

Quantum elasticity of graphene: Thermal expansion coefficient and specific heat

Rotational quantum friction.

We investigate the frictional forces due to quantum fluctuations acting on a small sphere rotating near a surface. At zero temperature, we find the frictional force near a surface to be several orders of magnitude larger than that for the sphere rotating in vacuum. For metallic materials with typical conductivity, quantum friction is maximized by matching the frequency of rotation with the cond...