Wien's law in relativistic frame

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Frank Lampard
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Frame Law Relativistic
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 3K views
Frank Lampard
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Can anyone tell me whether Wien's law of displacement is valid in Relativistic frame??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Can u tell me the names of some books dealing with this topic??
 
Physics news on Phys.org
You are asking about an extension of a non-relativistic phenomenon into relativistic regimes. To do so, you need to first more precisely define all your terms.

In this case: how do you define temperature relativistically?

There have been many academic arguments about this alone. Relativistic thermodynamics can be a tough subject. I would start reading there, before continuing.

That being said,
Look at Planck's law (I'm too lazy to tex it up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_law )
Unless frequency transforms the same as Temperature, then the distribution will have a different dependence (and thus peak position).

Also, if something is moving relativistically, the emissions will have noticeable doppler shifts. Are the frequencies measured corrected for this? If not, then no Wien's law should not hold. Or do you mean to average over all emissions in all directions? (in which case I suspect the answer will still be no, but I haven't calculated it)

Basically, the question needs to be defined better, and while tracking down better definitions you will probably answer your own question. Please share what you find along the way in case others are looking up this question later.
 
Frank Lampard said:
Can anyone tell me whether Wien's law of displacement is valid in Relativistic frame??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Can u tell me the names of some books dealing with this topic??


Aberration and Doppler shift: The cosmic background radiation and its rest frame
T. Greber and H. Blatter
Am. J. Phys. 58, 942 (1990) Full Text: [ PDF (390 kB) GZipped PS Order ]
I think that is a good introduction into the subject