For symmetric touching parabolic dispersions with constant density of states per energy band, including spin degeneracy, charge neutrality fixes . The Fermi-Dirac distribution gives and the thermal internal energy, including electrons and holes, is . Thus . Its large ratio to is compatible with the equipartition theorem because this excitation count grows with temperature and the heat capacity includes both species.
Thermal radiation Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-06
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted by matter because of its temperature. Matter in thermal equilibrium emits a spectrum governed by its absorptivity, approaching the Planck law for a blackbody.
Thermal radiation shield 2026-10-20
A thermal radiation shield interposes a surface to reduce radiative heat exchange between an apparatus and its surroundings. temperature, emissivity and view factors determine its effectiveness; conductive supports and gas transport remain separate heat paths. A thermal radiation shield is not automatically an ionizing-radiation shield.
Thermal Raman line ratio 2026-10-18
Assume one harmonic normal mode at thermal equilibrium, weak spontaneous excitation far from electronic resonances, the same collection solid angle and wave polarization, and matched response after instrumental correction. The Boltzmann distribution gives
Here is the Boltzmann constant, is temperature, and is the probability of vibrational quantum number . Thus . Linear coupling to has squared oscillator matrix elements proportional to for Stokes Raman scattering and for Anti-Stokes Raman scattering. Summing over initial levels gives strengths proportional to and respectively; their ratio is , even when levels above are occupied.
Let and denote line-integrated radiant intensities, meaning power per collection solid angle. The off-resonant electric dipole radiation law adds the fourth power of emitted frequency:
The photon rate divides each line's power by its own . Consequently, the ideal response-corrected anti-Stokes/Stokes count-rate ratio has the third power of the same frequency ratio. Peak heights alone do not give line-integrated radiant intensities if linewidths differ. Uncorrected detector counts can also include unequal detector response and unequal optical filter transmission. Resonant enhancement, overlapping spectral lines, nonthermal populations and local optical heating can invalidate a temperature inferred from this simple formula.
Thermal resistance Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
Thermal resistance measures the temperature drop required to drive a given rate of heat transfer. For the steady one-dimensional bar model in thermal conduction,
Here relates the temperature drop to heat flux, while relates it to the rate of heat transfer. The single bar above has and , so its drop drives .
To see why series thermal resistances add, apply Fourier's law in each layer to obtain . With no accumulation or side losses the rate of heat transfer is the same through both, so adding the drops gives . This lets us size layered walls without solving a new differential equation for every layer. The structure matches Ohm's law: temperature difference plays the role of electric potential difference, the rate of heat transfer plays the role of electric current, and thermal resistance plays the role of electrical resistance. [ref]
Thermal shield 2026-10-20
A thermal shield reduces coupling to unwanted environmental temperature changes. Low-conductance supports and thermal insulation reduce heat transport, low-emissivity surfaces reduce thermal radiation, and a conducting inner enclosure can reduce temperature gradients. Combined with heat capacity these give a thermal low-pass response. Passive shielding cannot indefinitely reject a slow change in the entire environment and may increase the temperature rise from internal dissipation; active regulation addresses a different frequency range.
Thermal speed 2026-10-24
A characteristic random particle speed. Here temperature is measured in energy units, and the factor-two convention makes a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution proportional to . Other conventions, such as the one-dimensional standard deviation , differ by fixed factors.
At fixed irradiation, heating per grain is independent of temperature while cooling is proportional to . With positive heat capacity and intact grains, a positive temperature perturbation increases net cooling, and a negative one increases net heating. Fixed dust properties and sufficient dust-gas thermal coupling are necessary assumptions.
Thermal stress 2026-10-31
Thermal stress is stress generated when thermal expansion or contraction is constrained or incompatible. A uniformly heated isotropic body whose entire boundary is fixed has and . For a nonuniform temperature field, interior displacement generally remains nonzero even with a fixed outer boundary; equilibrium and compatibility must be solved together. Cancelling the divergence of a thermal stress term with a body force is not the same as making that stress vanish.
Thermal structure 2026-10-24
The spatial distribution of temperature in a region, such as a slab and its surrounding mantle wedge.
Thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
For a Planck photon distribution, the hot-electron Kompaneets equation gives , where . The equivalent thermodynamic temperature perturbation has the displayed form, while the Rayleigh-Jeans law gives . The distortion changes sign at . This first-order expression assumes a small Compton y parameter and nonrelativistic thermal electrons.
When in the stated model, the broken, nonzero minimum remains globally preferred at every finite temperature. A metastable zero state can still exist for , but its lifetime and a nucleation temperature are kinetic questions. Its disappearance at the spinodal point is not an equilibrium coexistence temperature.
Thermal transpiration 2026-10-14
Thermal transpiration is gas transport driven by an imposed temperature difference in a rarefied connection. Gas can move from cold to hot even when the two end pressures start equal. If the reservoirs are closed, redistribution builds a counteracting pressure difference until the net transfer stops. This final stationary state is not global thermal equilibrium: the two temperatures remain different. It explains why a heated pressure sensor can read a different pressure from the vessel to which it is connected. The correction depends on gas, connection geometry and molecular interaction with its surfaces. [ref]
The simple molecular limit is beautiful: equal opposing particle rates need not mean equal pressures. Consider effusion through a thin hole connecting two locally equilibrated reservoirs of the same gas, at . Equating their one-way rates gives
At equal pressure, the hotter reservoir has lower number density; its faster molecules do not fully compensate for that reduction in outgoing particle rate. With and , the ideal zero-transfer ratio is . The hydrodynamic, zero-flow limit instead has equal pressures when other forces are absent. These are limiting models, not an interpolation formula for a glass capillary. [ref] In a real tube, incomplete exchange of molecular energy with the wall can alter the limiting ratio; a Knudsen number does not specify that exchange. [ref]
Thermal transpiration experiment with a glass microtube Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
Rojas Cardenas, Graur, Perrier and Méolans studied thermal transpiration in helium using a glass microtube of diameter and length in their 2012 experiment. They heated one reservoir, leaving the other near room temperature, and measured tube-end temperatures of and . Three contact thermometers and an infrared camera checked the thermal conditions; the hot reservoir was warmer than the adjacent tube end, so heater temperature was not an adequate substitute for tube-end temperature. Two capacitance diaphragm gauges recorded the reservoir pressures; a third gauge supported calibration. [ref]
Figure 1.
Thermal-transpiration measurement geometry and an ideal effusion comparison
. The upper panel is a simplified apparatus schematic, not a reproduction of the experimental hardware. The lower panels compare one-way rates in a thin-hole toy model with and ; they are not measured capillary data. Details.
Their earlier 2011 paper explains the measurement sequence. A wide bypass links the reservoirs in parallel with the microtube. After isolating the gas supply and pump, keep the bypass open to equalize pressures with the temperature difference already established. Closing the bypass defines . The hot-side pressure rises and the cold-side pressure falls; ultimately their slopes approach zero at unequal pressures. Repeating at different initial pressures changes the degree of rarefaction without changing the microtube. The 2011 study also compared helium and nitrogen and imposed temperature differences of , and . [ref]
The quantities to record are both and , the reservoir volumes, and the temperatures relevant to their particle inventories. In an idealized reservoir of fixed volume and uniform fixed temperature , the ideal gas law gives , so opposite inventory changes test particle conservation. If temperature changes, differentiation instead gives : a thermal drift can imitate particle transfer. The authors' 2011 presentation explicitly checks this thermal correction when extracting an initial mass flow rate from the pressure slope. [ref]
The 2012 paper compares the final pressure ratio across near-free-molecular through slip conditions with a kinetic model and empirical corrections. It does not establish the thin-hole square-root law at every measured pressure. [ref] For a replication, useful additional controls follow from the interpretation: remove the temperature difference to test the null signal; reverse it to test the direction; check gauge zero offsets and leaks; and wait for stable temperatures before closing the bypass. These are suggested controls, not claims that the cited paper performed each one. A reproducible pressure split at zero net transfer makes the failure of a single continuum wall model observable, while the Knudsen number organizes which molecular and apparatus scales are competing.
Thermal wind Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-05
Thermal-wind balance relates vertical shear of geostrophic flow to horizontal density or temperature gradients. With constant Coriolis parameter and reference density ,
for the sign conventions used here.
For the quantum rotor, low temperature makes the angular-momentum sum converge fastest: n=0 gives . High temperature makes the temporal winding sum converge fastest: m=0 gives . At low temperature many winding sectors contribute and cancel the vanishing fixed-endpoint prefactor. A zero-winding approximation valid at high temperature cannot be extended to low temperature merely because winding paths look geometrically longer.
Euclidean finite temperature compactifies time to a circle of radius . The string oscillator ground states with zero momentum number and winding have the displayed mass from the bosonic string mass spectrum. They become massless at and tachyonic at higher temperature. This thermal winding mode diagnoses breakdown of the perturbative low-temperature string gas at the Hagedorn temperature. The endpoint and order of a transition require interactions and a suitable stable vacuum; the ordinary zero-winding bosonic tachyon is already unstable independently of this thermal threshold.
Thermionic emission Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Release of electrons from a heated material; one source of electrons in an X-ray tube.
Heating a metal gives some electrons enough energy to escape its surface. A heated diode cathode can therefore supply an electric current across a vacuum gap to a collecting diode anode. This makes temperature a control for the supply of electrons. Conversely, measuring that supply at several temperatures lets us estimate the surface work function: the energy barrier measured from the Fermi level to the nearby vacuum level. A Richardson plot turns the strong exponential function dependence into a slope.
Three questions must be kept separate: how many electrons cross the surface, how many traverse the gap, and how many the collecting diode anode records. The Richardson-Dushman law answers the first under specified surface assumptions. Space charge can obstruct the second, while incomplete collection can alter the third.
Thermionic Richardson constant Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
The coefficient has dimensions of electric current density divided by squared temperature. For ideal nonrelativistic particles with the free electron mass, two spin states, a planar uniform surface, and unit escape transmission, the thermionic tail-flux derivation gives
where is the positive elementary charge and is the Planck constant. The two area units differ by a factor of . A fitted need not equal : reflection at the surface, the electronic band structure, and uncertain emitting area affect the inferred coefficient. A constant escape transmission would give in this simple model; an energy-dependent transmission generally requires an integral instead.
The name joins Owen Willans Richardson with Saul Dushman. Dushman's 1923 paper develops a thermodynamic treatment of electron emission analogous to evaporation and evaluates the prefactor using quantum ideas.[ref]
Thermistor 2026-10-18
A thermistor is a temperature-sensitive resistor used as a resistance thermometer. Its calibrated electrical resistance supplies a temperature indication; probe heat capacity and unwanted thermal conduction can affect its response and immersion error.