Friday, September 16, 2016

Extreme temperatures, relativity and kinetic theory


According to kinetic theory, average kinetic energy is proportional to temperature. Supposing $k_BT/2$ per particle, can we use relativity and kinetic theory to calculate, e.g., the temperature and velocity of quarks in a quark-gluon plasma and hotter/denser states of matter?


Note: I did some calculations already myself to check this idea


Normal kinetic theory (in 3D)-> $$E_c(av)=\dfrac{1}{2}mv^2=3k_BT/2$$ must be substituted (???) by


$$E_c(rel)=Mc^2-mc^2$$


with $$M=m\gamma$$


For a quark-gluon plasma, taking the proton mass as m and the critical temperature as 200MeV I get


$$200MeV=3/2k_BT$$


so T is about $$2\cdot 10^{12}K$$ or about 4x10¹²K if I drop the factor 3 above. That is OK with the known temperature of the quark-gluon plasma. I am also concerned about the issue of determining the gamma factor for protons(quarks?) at those energies/temperatures...



I get, for protons at this


$$\beta=v/c=\sqrt{1-(mc^2/E)^2}=0.977$$


Am I right?




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