2. Fast or slow? What is an adiabatic process?

Most of the readers would probably answer that this is a process with a gas which is so fast that there is no heat exchange with the surroundings. However, this is only a half of the truth, and actually the less important half. n fact, it is !uite easy to understand that this is not entirely correct" consider a cylinder, which is divided by a thin wall into two halves# one half is filled with a gas at a pressure p, and the other one is empty. $ow, let us remove momentarily the wall" the gas from one half fills the entire cylinder. %ince no external wor& is done 'the wall can be removed without performing a wor&(, the energy of the gas is preserved, hence, the temperature remains the same as it was at the beginning. Meanwhile, for an adiabatic process we would expect a decrease of temperature by a factor of 2-)" part of the internal energy is supposed to be spent on a mechanical wor& performed by the expanding gas. However, if the piston moves faster than the speed of sound, the gas will be unable to catch up and push the piston. %o, the adiabatic law was not followed because the process was too fast* t appears that the adiabatic law for thermodynamics has also a counterpart in classical mechanics + the conservation of the adiabatic invariant. For mechanical systems 'oscillators( performing periodic motion, the adiabatic invariant is defined as the area of the closed curve drawn by the system in phase space 'which is a graph where the momentum p is plotted as a function of the respective coordinate x(, and is 'approximately( conserved when the parameters of the system are changed adiabatically, ie. slowly as compared with the oscillation frequency. For typical applications, the accuracy of the conservation of the adiabatic invariant is exponentially good and can be estimated as e,f, where f is the eigenfre!uency of the oscillator, and is the characteristic period of the variation of the system parameters. How are related to each other (a) adiabatic invariant and (b) adiabatic process with a gas? -he easiest way to understand this is to consider a one,dimensional motion of a molecule between two walls, which depart slowly from each other 'Figure )(. .et us use the system of reference where one of the walls is at rest, and the other moves with a velocity u // v, where v is the velocity of the molecule 'the interaction of the molecule with the walls is assumed to be absolutely elastic(. 0ne can say that such a molecule represents an oscillator with a slowly changing potential" the potential energy U'x( 1 2 for 2/x/ X 'where X 1 a 3ut( and otherwise, U'x( 1 4. -he tra5ectory of the molecule in the phase space is a rectangle of side lengths X and 2mv. %o, the adiabatic invariant is 2mvX# hence, vX 1 6onst. For a one,dimensional gas, the distance X between the walls plays the role of the 7volume8 V, and mv2921&-92, hence v : )92 'here ;:; means 7is proportional to8(. %o, the adiabatic invariant can be written as V 2 1 6onst. 0n the other hand, from the adiabatic law for an ideal gas, we would expect V <,) 1 6onst. For the one,dimensional gas, the number of the degrees of freedom i 1 ), hence < 1 cp9cV 1 'i32(9i 1=, and V2 1 6onst, ie. we can conclude that the adiabatic invariant and the adiabatic gas law give us exactly the same result*

How to prove that for an adiabatic forcing of an oscillator! the adiabatic invariant is conserved" Well, this is not a too simple mathematical tas& and thus we s&ip the proof here 'it can be found in good textboo&s of theoretical mechanics(. However, for a simple particular case of an elastic ball between two walls 'see above(, it can be done more easily. ndeed, with each impact with the departing wall, the speed of the ball is decreased by 2u, and this happens once per time interval t 1 2X9v. %o, the ball decelerates with the rate of dv9dt 1 2u9t 1uv9X, hence dv9v1 udt9X 1 +dX9X. ntegrating this differential e!uation gives us directly Xv 1 6onst. 6onservation laws play a central role both for the physical processes, and for the physics as a science 'cf 7Minimum of Maximum8(, and adiabatic invariant is not an exception. >erhaps the most important role of it is related to the !uantum mechanics. $amely, during adiabatic processes, the system will not leave the stationary !uantum state it has ta&en 'as long as the state itself does not disappear(. -o motivate this claim, let us consider a biatomic molecule, which can be modelled as an oscillator. When treating the process classically, the tra5ectory of a harmonic oscillator in the phase space is an ellips of surface area # 1 ?p2x2, where p2 and x2 are the amplitudes of the momentum and coordinate. $ote that p2 1 mx2$2, where $2 is the circular eigenfre!uency of the oscillator# therefore, the full energy of the oscillator 'calculated as the maximal &inetic energy( is % 1 p2292m 1 p2x2$292 1 # $292? 1 # f2. Hence, the adiabatic invariant # 1 %9f2" during adiabatic processes, the oscillation energy is proportional to the fre!uency. @ccording to the !uantum mechanics, the stationary energy levels of the oscillator are given by %n1hf2'n 3)92(, where n is an integer representing the order number of the energy level. 6omparing the classical and !uantum,mechanical results leads us to the conclusion that during adiabatic processes, n = Const: the system will remain at the stationary state of the same order number where it was 'Figure 2( . 'While it is not always completely correct to combine classical and !uantum,mechanical results, classical mechanics is a macroscopic limit of the !uantum mechanics and hence, the conservation laws of both theories need to be compatible.(

$ow, suppose our bi,atomic molecule is forced by an electromagnetic field in the form of an adiabatic pulse. n terms of classical mechanics we say that such a forcing is unable to pump energy into oscillations of the molecule, because the adiabatic invariant is conserved and hence, the energy of oscillations depends only on the current eigenfre!uency. n terms of !uantum mechanics weAll say exactly the same, but the motivation will be different" the adiabatic pulse contains no photons which are resonant with the oscillator. @nother important role of the adiabatic invariant is protecting us from the cosmic radiation 'in 7collaboration8 with the magnetic field of the Barth(. t appears that the motion of a charged particle in a magnetic field can be represented as an Hamiltonian motion 'we s&ip here the definition of the Hamiltonian motion as it would go too deeply into the sub5ect of theoretical mechanics(, with a re,defined momentum. t appears also that with this new momentum 'the so,called generaliCed momentum(, the adiabatic invariant of a gyrating 'helicoidally moving( charged particle is its magnetic dipole moment 'which is proportional to the magnetic flux embraced by the tra5ectory, hence this flux is also conserved(. %o, if a charged particle moves helicoidally along magnetic field lines towards a stronger magnetic field, due to the conservation of its magnetic moment, the perpendicular 'to the magnetic field( component of its velocity will increase. 0wing to the conservation of its &inetic energy, the parallel component of the velocity will decrease, and at a certain point, it becomes e!ual to Cero" the particle is reflected bac& 'Figure =(. -his is exactly what happens with a ma5ority of the charged particles approaching Barth along the field lines of its magnetic field.

@diabatic invariant has simple every,day applications, too. %uppose you try to carry a cup of coffee + this will be !uite simple even if the cup is completely full. $ow try the same with a plate of soup + at least with full plate, this will be !uite difficult* Finally, with a large full photographic tray, this will be nearly impossible* -he reason is that when you try to &eep your hands motionless, they still move slightly, but the feedbac& from your vision allows you to correct the mista&es. -he characteristic time,scale of such a motion of hands is of the same order of magnitude as your reaction time, in the range of 2.2 + 2.D s. -his is to be compared with the reciprocal of the circular eigenfre!uency $2,) of the water level oscillations. '$2,) differs from the full period by 2?# $2,) serves as a better reference here, because the corrective motion of hands represents no more than a !uarter of a full period of an oscillatory motion.( For a plate of depth h and length &, the smallest eigenfre!uency can be estimated as the fre!uency of standing waves of wavelength 2. 'see also problem $o 2 of >h0,)EFD(. -he speed of shallow water waves is 'gh()92, so that the eigenfre!uency will be f2 1 'gh()9292.. For a cup of coffee, the diameter and depth can be estimated as Gcm, hence the characteristic time scale of oscillations will be $2,) H 2.2=s# with respect to such oscillations, the hand motion is adiabatic + even if we apply our smallest estimate of 2.2s 'note that counter, intuitively, here a slow reaction is better than a fast one(. For a plate of H 1 =cm and . 1 2Icm we get $2,) H 2.)Is + the hand motion is already not very adiabatic. Finally, for a photographic tray of H 1 =cm and . 1 J2cm, we obtain $2,) H 2.=Is, which is really difficult to handle. Finally, in the context of adiabaticity, it is interesting to analyse the >h0 problem about tides, which was posed in )EEJ in 0slo 'as >roblem $o =(. -he problem is, indeed, very interesting" you are given a simplified model of a complex and important phenomenon, which, regardless of simplicity, gives you reasonable estimate and teaches valuable physical concepts. .et us read its text and comment the model assumptions. 'n this problem we consider some gross features of the magnitude of mid-ocean tides on earth( )e simplif* the problem b* ma+ing the following assumptions, (i) he earth and the moon are considered to be an isolated s*stem, 9a very reasonable assumption" even the effect of the %un is small in the reference frame of Moon,Barth centre of mass, where the inertial force and %un gravity cancel each

other out9 (ii) the distance between the moon and the earth is assumed to be constant! 9also reasonable" there are small variations, but nothing to worry about9 (iii) the earth is assumed to be completel* covered b* an ocean! 9this is definitely not the case, but at least the >acific 0cean is very large# as a model, why not K9 (iv) the d*namic effects of the rotation of the earth around its axis are neglected! and 9Lid you understand what they wanted to say? f not, you need to learn reading the problem texts* Well, it means that the forcing of the water by the Moon is to be assumed to be adiabatic 'slow(, so that the water level will ta&e a -uasi-e-uilibrium position 'ie. e!uilibrium, where the e!uilibrium state changes slowly in time(. -he validity of this assumption will be discussed below.9 (v) the gravitational attraction of the earth can be determined as if all mass were concentrated at the centre of the earth( @gain, a perfectly reasonable assumption" the gravitational field of a sphere 'assuming that the mass density depends only on the distance from the centre( is outside the sphere the same as that of a point mass. -he departure of the BarthMs shape from a sphere is small, indeed. @nd so, is the tide forcing really adiabatic? We need to compare the period of forcing with the eigenfre!uency, or, the speed of the ;piston; with the speed of waves. -he speed of the ;piston; is the Barth perimeter divided by 2D h, ie. v 1 DJ2 m9s. -he relevant wave is, in effect, a tsunami with the estimated speed of 'gH()92 1 222 m9s 'here, H 1 D222 m is an estimate for the average ocean depth(. %o, the forcing is far from being adiabatic, we could say that the assumption 'iv( is horribly wrong. 0n the other hand, if we solve the problem according to these assumptions, we obtain for the tide amplitude h 1 2G cm, which has at least a correct order of magnitude# why? Well, because for a typical resonance response curve, the response amplitude at a double eigenfre!uency 'which we would need as the ;piston; speed is ca twice the wave speed( is of the same order of magnitude as that of a Cero fre!uency 'which is obtained in this >roblem(. Further, since the tidal motion of the water is by no means !uasi,stationary, the ocean boundaries will play an important role. What will happen is very similar to the motion of tea in a cup, when you push the tea by a spoon" basin boundaries reflect the moving water, creating vortices and complex pattern of tidal heights. -o conclude, we learned that the above tide model fails for water tides 'providing a very rough estimate of the tidal height(# perhaps it can be used somewhere else with a better accuracy? -he answer is ;*es! for the tides of the %arth crust ;* ndeed, the mantle thic&ness is of the order of few thousands &m, which corresponds to almost ten,fold tsunami speed and ma&es the Moon as a ;piston; reasonably adiabatic. -he relative crust deformation due to tidal movements is so small that the elastic response of the crust is also negligible" the result h 1 2G cm is indeed very close to reality. N Oaan Palda, @cademic 6ommittee of >h0,22)2