Statistical mechanics of thermal contact between system and bath with long-range interactions

TL;DR

This paper extends the analysis of thermal contact to include long-range interactions using the long-range Ising model, revealing metastable phases and equilibrium properties of the system.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized framework for thermal contact incorporating long-range interactions and derives the equilibrium energy distribution for the system.

Findings

Existence of metastable phase below a critical temperature

Derived equilibrium probability distribution of the system's energy

Analyzed stability of magnetization solutions

Abstract

In this paper, we address the possibility of generalising the standard analysis of thermal contact between a sample system and a heat bath, by including long range interactions between them. As a concrete example, both system and bath are treated within the long range Ising model. For this model, we derive the equilibrium probability distribution of the energy of the sample system. Equilibrium properties of the system magnetisation and stability of the solutions is discussed. We find existence of a metastable phase below a critical temperature of the bath.