Third law of thermodynamics
The third law of thermodynamics (or Nernst's theorem after the experimental work of Walther Nernst) states that the entropy of a system approaches a minimum (that of its ground state) as one approaches the temperature of absolute zero. One can write
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \lim_{T \rightarrow 0} \frac{S(T)}{N} = 0}
where is the number of particles. Note that there are systems whose ground state entropy is not zero, for example metastable states or glasses, or systems with weakly or non-coupled spins that are not subject to an ordering field.
Implications
The heat capacity (for either pressure or volume) tends to zero as one approaches absolute zero. From
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle C_{p,V}(T)= T \left. \frac{\partial S}{\partial T} \right\vert_{p,V} }
one has
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle S(T) - S(0) = \int_0^x \frac{C_{p,V}(T)}{T} ~\mathrm{d}T}
thus Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle C \rightarrow 0} as Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle T \rightarrow 0} , otherwise the integrand would become infinite.
Similarly for the thermal expansion coefficient
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \alpha := \frac{1}{V} \left. \frac{\partial V}{\partial T} \right\vert_p = -\frac{1}{V} \left. \frac{\partial S}{\partial p} \right\vert_T \rightarrow 0}