Heat conduction in general relativity

Abstract

We study the problem of heat conduction in general relativity by using Carter’s variational formulation. We write the creation rates of the entropy and the particle as combinations of the vorticities of temperature and chemical potential. We pay attention to the fact that there are two additional degrees of freedom in choosing the relativistic analog of Cattaneo equation for the parts binormal to the caloric and the number flows. Including the contributions from the binormal parts, we find a new heat-flow equations and discover their dynamical role in thermodynamic systems. The benefit of introducing the binormal parts is that it allows room for a physical ansatz for describing the whole evolution of the thermodynamic system. Taking advantage of this platform, we propose a proper ansatz that deals with the binormal contributions starting from the physical properties of thermal equilibrium systems. We also consider the stability of a thermodynamic system in a flat background. We find that new ‘Klein’ modes exist in addition to the known ones. We also find that the stability requirement is less stringent than those in the literature.