Heat pulse experiments revisited

Abstract

This is a review of heat propagation — theory and experiment — in dielectric solids at low temperatures where the phenomenon of second sound occurs. The review does not merely present a list of the various explanations of the observed phenomena. Rather it views them as special cases of a unified theory which is formulated within the framework of extended thermodynamics of phonos. Field equations are derived by averaging over the phonon-Boltzmann equation and initial and boundary value problems are solved. Thus it became possible to achieve a full explanation of the observations of the heat-pulse experiments in which ballistic phonons, second sound and ordinary heat conduction compete.