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Article

Generalized Ideal Gas Equations for Structureful Universe

Department of Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Submission received: 19 May 2006 / Accepted: 4 September 2006 / Published: 4 September 2006

Abstract

:
We have derived generalized ideal gas equations for a structureful universe consisting of all forms of matters. We have assumed a universe that contains superclusters. Superclusters are then made of clusters. Each cluster can be further divided into smaller ones and so on. We have derived an expression for the entropy of such a universe. Our model is rather independent of the geometry of the intermediate clusters. Our calculations are valid for a non-interacting universe within non-relativistic limits. We suggest that structure formation can reduce the expansion rate of the universe.

1 Introduction

Ideal gas equations can be applied to non-interacting dilute gases. Molecules and atoms in gas phase are so far away from each other, it makes a little difference if we ignore the molecular interaction. These molecules and atoms are further subject to Heisenberg uncertainty principle [1]. When dealing with the universe as a whole, we see that the molecules, nucleons and other subatomic particles are not uniformly distributed over the space. There exists various scales in the universe. The nucleons are particles in a star and at a larger scale the stars can be treated as particles of a galaxy and so on. In order to incorporate all scales one is required to generalize the ideal gas equation. In this paper, we have derived generalized gas equations for such a universe. In an earlier paper, based on configuration space, we addressed future orientation of time with the growth of entropy [2]. In the present paper we have extended the same model to phase space. In this model we assume that the universe is structureful which consists of clusters. Each cluster contains subclusters. These subclusters can further be divided into even smaller ones and so on. Such a description is called the universal self-similarity [2]. It should be noted that, for instance, cluster of galaxies are bound, virialized, high over density system, held together by the cluster self gravity [3]. In this perspective we can say that our model intrinsically incorporates gravity.

2 Model

We can assume that on large scale the universe is homogeneous, isotropic [4] and unique [2, 5]. We can further assume that all forms of the matter in the universe are contained in clusters. Each cluster contains sub-clusters and so on. We treat these clusters, at their corresponding scales, as particles of ideal gas. We confine ourself to nonrelativistic regime.
We can represent the universe by a set Gn [2]
G n = { G 1 n 1 , G 2 n 1 , , G N n n 1 } ,
where G i n 1 represents the ith cluster and Nn is the number of clusters in the Gn. We can regard that Nn is the cardinal number of set Gn. Similarly we can write G i m 1 as
G i m 1 = { G 1 m 2 , G 2 m 2 , , G N n 1 m 2 } ,
We can continue this to sub-atomic level and finally we get
G j 1 = { G 1 0 , G 2 0 , , G N 1 0 } ,
where G k 0 ’s correspond to constituent particles which we assume, have no further substructure.
The spatial distribution of accessible states for this system can be written as [1, 2, 6]
Γ n α = ( V n α Δ V n 1 α ) N n ,
where α stands for configurations space. V n α is the spatial volume of Gn and Δ V n 1 α is the volume occupied by G i n 1 . We assume that Δ V n 1 α is not arbitrarily small. It is much smaller as compared to V n α at the scale of Gn whereas at the scale of G i m 1 , it is much larger than Δ V n 2 α . Therefore the corresponding accessible states at the scale of G i m 1
Γ n 1 α = ( Δ V n 1 α Δ V n 2 α ) N n 1 ,
where Δ V n 2 α is the volume occupied by G j n 2 . Putting Δ V n 1 α from eq.(2) into eq.(1) and on re-arranging we get
V n α Δ V n 1 α = ( Γ n α ) 1 / N n ( Γ n 1 α ) 1 / N n 1
We can generalize it as follow
V n α Δ V 0 α = i = 1 n ( Γ i α ) 1 / N i
As we know that
s = k B ln Γ ,
where s is the entropy and kB is the Boltzmann’s constant. Using eq. (4) and eq. (5), we get
ln ( V n α Δ V 0 α ) = i = 1 n s i α k B N i
where sα is the spatial entropy and Δ V 0 α is the spread or uncertainty in volume of the constituent particles.
It is important to note that a relation describing average value of physical quantities such as entropy, mass or thermal energy of an element of Gi with an element of Gi−1 can be written as
x i = N i x i 1
where x can be the average value of entropy, mass or thermal energy etc. Using eq.(7) for entropy into eq.(6) and after iteration we get
ln ( V n α Δ V 0 α ) = N s 0 α k B
where s 0 α is the average of spatial entropy of the constituent particle and
N = 1 + N 1 + N 1 N 2 + + i = 1 n 1 N i
It is worth mentioning the last term in the series of N is much large as compared to other terms in the series.
It follows from eq. (7)
X x n = i = 1 n N i x 0 = N t x 0
where X corresponds to the average value of entropy, mass, thermal energy or any other additive physical quantity of the universe Gn. Nt stands for total number of massive particles in the universe. In the above equation, we have further assumed that each Gi have equal number of Gi−1 elements.
If we treat X as entropy in eq. (10) and using this equation and eq.(8), we can obtain the spatial entropy of the universe which can be written as,
S α = k B N t N ln ( V n α Δ V 0 α )
Next we consider momentum space. The momentum distribution of accessible states for Gn can be written as [1]
Γ n α = V n β Δ V n 1 β
Here [1, 7]
V n β = ( 2 π m n 1 μ n ) 3 N n / 2 ( 3 N n / 2 ) !
where superscript β stands for momentum space. mn−1 is the average mass of G i n 2 and un is the average kinetic energy of Gn.
Similarly we can write
Γ n 1 β = Δ V n 1 β Δ V n 2 β
Following the same procedure as for eq. (4), we can write
i = 1 n Γ i β = V n β N 1 ! Δ V 0 β ,
where Δ V 0 β = ( Δ p x ) 3 N 1 and ∆px is the uncertainty in momentum of the constituent particle in one dimension. As we reach smaller and smaller G’s, then we are ultimately in quantum regime (i.e. nucleons in a star). A factor of N1! appears in the denominator of r.h.s of eq. (15) in order to avoid over counting of N1 momenta of identical nucleons in stars [1].
After doing some straight forward calculation we can write an expression for entropy due to momentum distribution as
S β = N t k B N + N t { ln V n β N 1 ln N 1 + N 1 3 N 1 ln Δ p x }
For large Nn [7]
ln V n β 3 N n 2 ln ( 2 π e 3 N n 2 m n 1 μ n )
where e = 2.718... i.e. base of natural logarithm. Using above approximation we can rewrite eq. (16) as
S β = N t k B N + N t { 3 N n 2 ln ( 4 π e m n 1 μ n 3 N n ) N 1 ln N 1 + N 1 3 N 1 ln Δ p x }
Now using eqs. (11) and (18), we can write the combined entropy of our universe in phase space as
S = S α + S β = N t k B N ln ( V n α Δ V 0 α ) + N t k B N + N t { 3 N n 2 ln ( 4 π e m n 1 μ n 3 N n ) N 1 ln N 1 + N 1 3 N 1 ln Δ p x }
As from eqs. (7) and (10), we can write mn−1Nn = mnM and unU, where M is the mass of the universe, U stands for the total thermal energy of the universe. We can finally write entropy of the universe as
S = N t k B N ln ( V Δ V 0 ) + N t k B N + N t { 3 N n 2 ln ( 4 π e M U 3 N n ) N 1 ln N 1 + N 1 3 N 1 ln Δ p x } ,
Here Nn is the number of top most clusters (say the number of superclusters in the universe) which makes the universe and N1 is the average number of particles in the bottom most cluster (say the number of nucleons in a typical star). In the above equation we have also dropped the indices α and n over the spatial volume of the universe for brevity.

3 Implication of the Model

We can now find the thermal energy and the equation of state by using the following thermody-namics relations.
T = ( U S ) V , N
and
P T = ( S V ) U , N
where P is pressure and T is temperature. From eqs. (20) and (21), we get
U = 3 N n 2 · N t N + N t k B T
This equation gives us the thermal energy of our structureful universe. From eqs. (20) and (22)
P V = N t k B T N ,
Eqs. (23) and (24) can be treated as generalized equations for an ideal gas for the structureful universe.
To verify validity of our system of equations, the ideal gas equations for molecules/particles must be deduced from eqs. (23) and (24). These equations can be obtained, if we take n = 1 as a special case. In this case Nn = Nt, where Nt is the number of particles in a gas. Further we find that for such a system N = 1, which can be neglected as compared to Nt in the denominator of r.h.s. of eq. (23). We finally get
U = 3 2 N t k B T
and
P V = N t k B T
The last two equations give us the thermal energy and the equation of state for an ideal gas respectively.
We can get interesting results from these equations. Let us denote the thermal energy (given in eq. (23) of the structureful universe by UA and the pressure by PA (given in eq. (24), and denoting the thermal energy and pressure for structureless universe (given in eqs. (25) and (26) by UB and PB respectively. For same temperature and volume
U A U B = N n N + N T
P A P B = 1 N
As we can see that UA « UB, and PA « PB. It suggests that expansion of structureful universe can be much slower as compared to a structureless universe.

4 Conclusion

We have considered different scales in expansion of universe starting from sub-atomic scale to super-clusters and beyond. We have obtained generalized ideal gas equations that are applicable to our structureful dynamical universe. It can be applied to stars, galaxies, cluster, supercluster and of course to the universe as a whole. Our model is rather independent of the shape and size of the intermediate clusters. In these derivations we were confined to a non-interacting and non-relativistic system. Using these results and astrophysical data one can quantitatively compute entropy and other thermodynamical observables of the structureful universe.

Acknowledgments

We have benefited from useful comments by Ariel Caticha. One of us (SNA) would like to ac-knowledge the ICSC- World Laboratory for providing partial financial support.

References

  1. Lee, J. C. Thermal Physics: Entropy and Free Energies; World Scientific: Singapore, 2002. [Google Scholar]
  2. Afridi, S.N.; Khan, M.K. Concepts of Physics 2006, 3, 71.
  3. Bahcall, N.A. Clusters and Superclusters of Galaxies, Rep. No. Princeton Observatory Preprint 692. astro-ph/9611148.
  4. Misner, C.W.; Thorne, K.S.; Wheeler,, J.A. Gravitation; W.H. Freeman and Company: New York, 1973. [Google Scholar]
  5. Castagnino, M.; Lara, L.; Lombardi, O. Class. Quant. Grav. 2003, 20, 369.
  6. Bowley, R.; Sanchez, M. Introductory Statistical Mechanics; Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1996. [Google Scholar]
  7. Vesely, F.J. Web Tutorial on Statistical Mechanics. http://homepage.univie.ac.at/franz.vesely/sp_english/.

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MDPI and ACS Style

Afridi, S.N.; Khan, K. Generalized Ideal Gas Equations for Structureful Universe. Entropy 2006, 8, 175-181. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e8030175

AMA Style

Afridi SN, Khan K. Generalized Ideal Gas Equations for Structureful Universe. Entropy. 2006; 8(3):175-181. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e8030175

Chicago/Turabian Style

Afridi, Shahid N., and Khalid Khan. 2006. "Generalized Ideal Gas Equations for Structureful Universe" Entropy 8, no. 3: 175-181. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e8030175

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