Reparametrizations and metric structures in thermodynamic phase space

TL;DR

This paper explores how reparametrizations affect the geometric structures of thermodynamic phase space, showing that while some structures change, the metric on equilibrium states remains invariant, with implications for thermodynamic descriptions.

Contribution

It introduces a geometric framework for understanding reparametrizations in thermodynamics and identifies a rank-two tensor that encodes these effects.

Findings

Reparametrizations modify contact and Riemannian structures.

The metric on equilibrium states is invariant under reparametrizations.

A rank-two tensor captures the influence of reparametrizations on the geometry.

Abstract

We investigate the consequences of reparametrizations in the geometric description of thermodynamics analyzing the effects on the thermodynamic phase space. It is known that the contact and Riemannian structures of the thermodynamic phase space are related to thermodynamic equilibrium and statistical fluctuations in the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics. The physical motivation for this analysis rests upon the possibility of having, instead of a direct control of the intensive parameters determining the state of the corresponding physical reservoirs, the control of a set of differentiable functions of the original variables. Likewise, we consider a set of differentiable functions of the extensive variables accounting for the possibility of not having direct access to the original variables. We find that the effect of reparametrizations on the thermodynamic phase space can be codified, in geometrical terms, in its contact and Riemannian structures. In particular, we single out a rank-two tensor that enters in the definition of the metric which geometrically comprises the information about such reparametrizations. We notice that even if these geometric structures are modified by the reparametrizations, the metric structure on the thermodynamic space of equilibrium states is preserved.