Temperature and relativity

May, 1995
9 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Lett.A 209 (1995) 155
e-Print:
Report number:
  • IFT-P-027-95

Citations per year

19962003201020172024012345
Abstract: (arXiv)
We investigate whether inertial thermometers moving in a thermal bath behave as being hotter or colder. This question is directly related to the classical controversy concerning how temperature transforms under Lorentz transformations. Rather than basing our arguments on thermodynamical hypotheses, we perform straightforward calculations in the context of relativistic quantum field theory. For this purpose we use Unruh-DeWitt detectors, since they have been shown to be reliable thermometers in semi-classical gravity. We believe that our discussion helps in definitely clarifying this issue.
  • general relativity
  • space-time
  • temperature: measurement
  • propagator
  • numerical calculations