Past exam of the short options paper of the physics Prelims of the University of Oxford / 2019 / S3 / 1 / b

The constants are the Planck constant $h$, photon frequency $\nu$, speed of light $c$, Boltzmann constant $k_B$ and absolute temperature $T$. The supplied $U_{\nu }$ is a spectral energy density, with units $\mathrm{J}{\mathrm{m}}^{-3}\mathrm{H}{\mathrm{z}}^{-1}$. It describes equilibrium radiation per volume and frequency interval, rather than emitted power itself. For isotropic cavity radiation the corresponding surface spectral radiant exitance is $M_{\nu }=c{U}_{\nu }/4$.

At low frequency the curve rises as ${\nu }^2$; it has one positive maximum and an exponentially decaying high-frequency tail. The left panel below shades the area $u(T)={\int }_0^{\infty }{U}_{\nu }d\nu$ under one curve. Put $x=h\nu /(k_{B}T)$; thenThe remaining dimensionless integral is independent of temperature, soThus doubling temperature doubles the characteristic frequency scale, raises the spectrum's height by eight and increases its area by sixteen. Total emitted energy also depends on emitting area and elapsed time.