Quantum theory, thermal gradients and the curved Euclidean space

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical framework linking spatial thermal gradients to curvature in Euclidean space, analyzing quantum and classical behaviors to potentially validate the model experimentally at high energies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel equivalence between spatial temperature variations and Euclidean space curvature, extending thermal modeling to include spatial gradients through quantum and classical analyses.

Findings

Partition function and thermodynamic properties calculated for small metric perturbations.

Dirac equation solutions in curved Euclidean space with thermal gradients.

Classical geodesic analysis supports the quantum-theoretic framework.

Abstract

The Euclidean space, obtained by the analytical continuation of time, to an imaginary time, is used to model thermal systems. In this work, it is taken a step further to systems with spatial thermal variation, by developing an equivalence between the spatial variation of temperature in a thermal bath and the curvature of the Euclidean space. The variation in temperature is recast as a variation in the metric, leading to a curved Euclidean space. The equivalence is substantiated by analyzing the Polyakov loop, the partition function and the periodicity of the correlation function. The bulk thermodynamic properties like the energy, entropy and the Helmholtz free energy are calculated from the partition function, for small metric perturbations, for a neutral scalar field. The Dirac equation for an external Dirac spinor, traversing in a thermal bath with spatial thermal gradients, is solved in the curved Euclidean space. The fundamental behavior exhibited by the Dirac spinor eigenstate, may provide a possible mechanism to validate the theory, at a more basal level, than examining only bulk thermodynamic properties. Furthermore, in order to verify the equivalence at the level of classical mechanics, the geodesic equation is analyzed in a classical backdrop. The mathematical apparatus is borrowed from the physics of quantum theory in a gravity-induced space-time curvature. As spatial thermal variations are obtainable at QCD or QED energies, it may be feasible for the proposed formulation to be validated experimentally.