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Imagine a perfectly reflective container, filled with vacuum and two bodies with different colors, i.e. they have different emissive and absorptive properties. The bodies don't touch each other or the container wall. Their interaction, for the sake of this thought experiment can be narrowed down to radiative heat exchange. Volume of vacuum is negligible.

What is the formula that describes the energy exchange between the two bodies (energy per time)? Please don't assume anything that simplifies the formula. Make it as general as possible. Is it inevitable that this formula is zero at $T_1=T_2$? Is it possible that dynamic equilibrium is reached at a certain pair of temperatures where $T_1 \neq T_2$?

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  • $\begingroup$ here is a question in a similar spirit but with a single propagating mode and an explicit reactive filter between the thermal sources. $\endgroup$
    – hyportnex
    Commented May 13 at 16:49

2 Answers 2

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Is it inevitable that this formula is zero at $T_1=T_2$? Is it possible that dynamic equilibrium is reached at a certain pair of temperatures where $T_1 \neq T_2$?

To the best of my knowledge, any formula for the net radiant heat rate between two bodies, regardless of their emissivities, will be of the following form:

$$\dot Q_{12}=K\sigma (T_{1}^{4}-T_{2}^{4})$$

Where $\sigma$ is the Stephan-Boltzmann constant and K is a constant that takes into account emissivities, body surface areas, and shape factors. Note that $\dot Q_{12}=0$ does not mean the two bodies cease to radiate and absorb. Only that the net heat rate between the bodies is zero (i.e., dynamic equilibrium is attained)

That should answer both your questions

Hope this helps.

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  • $\begingroup$ Indeed, that is the formula that I found elsewhere, but it would be nice to see it before the integration over the wavelengths and to have some understanding on how the terms specific to the bodies can be separated out to one term, leaving the whole thing dependent on only the difference of the powers of the temperatures. $\endgroup$
    – Sándor
    Commented May 13 at 21:28
  • $\begingroup$ I did not "find" the formula I gave you. I simply took all the different examples I have on hand and found they all fit the formula I gave you with various complex expressions for K, but all involving constants (areas, emissivities, and shape factors). $\endgroup$
    – Bob D
    Commented May 13 at 21:53
  • $\begingroup$ The point is you always need a temperature difference for net radiant heat and dynamic equilibrium cannot occur if $T_{1}\ne T_2$. $\endgroup$
    – Bob D
    Commented May 13 at 22:00
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We cannot use that the radiated power of each body is simply determined by the 4th power of its temperature. That result only holds if we have black body radiation, which depends on frequency $\nu$ as: (See: [1] ) $$ B_\nu(T) = \frac{2h\nu^3}{c^2}\ \frac{1}{e^{h\nu/kT}-1} $$ and integrating this over frequencies (see [2]) does indeed give a result $\sim T^4$. Non-black bodies have some, in general frequency dependent, emissivity, $\varepsilon_\nu$, which changes the radiated power to: $$ P_\nu(T) = \varepsilon_\nu\ B_\nu(T) $$ and the integral over frequency will in general no longer be $C\ T^4$ for any constant $C$, because for different $T$-values, different frequency ranges become dominant, so the frequency dependence introduced by $\varepsilon_\nu$ can change the $T$-dependence.

What we do know, however, is that the absorptivity is the same as the emissivity. We now look at the power balance, by computing the power received by body 2 from body 1, and vice versa, $P_{21}$ and $P_{12}$: $$ P_{21} = \int\limits_0^\infty d\nu \ \varepsilon_{2,\nu}\ \varepsilon_{1,\nu}\ B_\nu(T_1) \\[5pt] P_{12} = \int\limits_0^\infty d\nu \ \varepsilon_{1,\nu}\ \varepsilon_{2,\nu}\ B_\nu(T_2) $$ It is obvious that if $T_1=T_2$ then $P_{21}=P_{12}$. But the converse is not immediately clear, so the question remains: can there be another equilibrium point? Let's assume, without loss of generality, that we have such a solution with $T_2>T_1$. Let's observe that $ \varepsilon_{1,\nu}$ and $ \varepsilon_{2,\nu} $ are both non-negative functions, and then use: $$\begin{align} T_2-T_1>0 \ &\Rightarrow B_\nu(T_2) - B_\nu(T_1) >0\ \ \ \text{for all finite}\ \nu, \\[5pt] \Rightarrow P_{12}-P_{21}&=\int\limits_0^\infty d\nu \ \varepsilon_{1,\nu}\ \varepsilon_{2,\nu}\,\big(B_\nu(T_2)-B_\nu(T_1)\big) >0, \end{align}$$ unless $\varepsilon_{1,\nu}\ \varepsilon_{2,\nu}=0$ everywhere. So there can only exist an equilibrium $P_{12}=P_{21}$ with $T_1\neq T_2$ if:

  1. For one of the bodies $\varepsilon_\nu=0$ at all frequencies, so we have a perfectly white body,
  2. Or at all frequencies either $\varepsilon_{1,\nu}=0$ or $\varepsilon_{2,\nu}=0$, so none of the bodies is perfectly white but they both have perfectly nonabsorbing frequency regions, which combine to fill the whole frequency range.

It should be added that stricly speaking we would have to integrate over all angles of emission and all points on the surface of each body, but for the sake of this proof we can assume that those integrals have for each frequency $\nu$ been done and are absorbed into the definition of $\varepsilon_{1,\nu}$ and $\varepsilon_{2,\nu}$.

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  • $\begingroup$ "We cannot use that the radiated power of each body is simply determined by the 4th power of its temperature". I didn't think the OP was asking that. The first question is it inevitable that IF the radiated power is zero then $T_{1}=T_2$. The answer to that is yes. The second question: Is it possible that dynamic equilibrium is reached at a certain pair of temperatures where $T_1 \neq T_2$? And the answer to that, for the scenario presented, is no. $\endgroup$
    – Bob D
    Commented May 15 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ The answer two both questions only depends on the relationship between $T_1$ and $T_2$. But since the OP accepted your answer it appears I might have misunderstood the question. $\endgroup$
    – Bob D
    Commented May 15 at 13:42

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