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Blackbody Radiation
A perfect absorber (a = 1 at all frequencies ) is called a black body. Kirchoff's law
(Eq. 2B7) requires that every black body has emissivity e = 1 at all frequencies as
well, so the radiated spectrum B (T ) of any black body at temperature T is the same
as the equilibrium spectrum of radiation inside a cavity of temperature T , even if the
walls of the cavity are not black. Thus the intensity and spectrum of blackbody
radiation depends only on the temperature of the black body or cavity. The same is
true for the electrical noise generated by a warm resistor, a device that dissipates
electrical energy, and which plays an important role in radio astronomy. You may
already be familiar with the standard derivations of the Rayleigh-Jeans and Planck
radiation laws, but they are worth repeating because blackbody radiation is so
fundamental and because their one-dimensional analogs yield the spectrum of
electrical noise generated by a resistor.

The Rayleigh-Jeans Law

Consider a large (meaning side length a , where is the longest wavelength of

interest) cubical cavity filled with radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium. The
purpose of the cavity is to generate radiation and confine the radiation long enough
for it to reach equilibrium. The radiation must be generated by thermal accelerations
of charged particles in the walls of any cavity with T 0, but the equilibrium
radiation is otherwise independent of the wall material. We only require that the
walls have nonzero conductivity because walls of zero conductivity would be
transparent; they would generate no currents in response to the electric fields of
incoming radiation and the radiation would pass through unaffected. For walls having
nonzero conductivity, the transverse electric field strength at the walls is E = 0
because modes with E = 0 at the walls are lossy. Only those standing waves with
E = 0 at the walls will persist after some time t a c.
We can enumerate all possible standing-wave modes in the cavity. For example,
consider all standing waves whose wave normals point in the x direction.
Standing waves corresponding to n x 2 = a for n = 1 2 3. Abscissa: x-axis of the
cavity, bounded by walls at x = 0 and x = a. Ordinate: Electric field strengths of the
longest standing waves satisfying the boundary condition E = 0 at the walls.

The boundary conditions E = 0 at x = 0 and at x = a mean that only the waves having
the discrete wavelengths

x 2 x 3 x
=a =a =a
2 2 2

can have nonzero amplitudes. Thus

n x
=a
2

where n = 1, 2, 3, . Similarly,

nx x ny y nz z
= = =a
2 2 2

for wave normals in the x y z directions.

What about a wave whose normal is in some arbitrary direction? Let be the
angles between the wave normal and the x y z axes, respectively.
This two-dimensional figure illustrates standing waves propagating in a cavity with
wave normals at angles and from the x and y axes, respectively. Examples of
wave nodes, where E = 0, are indicated by dashed lines for the case nx = 3, ny = 2 .

From the figure it is clear that

= x cos

where is the wavelength measured in the direction of the wave normal and x
is the spacing between the wave nodes measured along the x-axis. Thus

x =
cos

Similarly,

y = and z =
cos cos

Our boundary conditions become

2a 2a 2a
nx = ny = nz =
x y z

2a cos 2a cos 2a cos

nx = ny = nz =

Squaring and summing the last three equations gives

 2
2a
nx2 + ny2 + n2z = (cos2 + cos2 + cos2 )

The Pythagorean theorem implies (cos2 + cos2 + cos2 ) = 1 so

2
2a
nx2 + ny2 + n2z =

The permitted frequencies =c of these standing waves are:

c
= nx2 + ny2 + n2z
2a

for all positive integers nx , ny , and nz .

The permitted standing-wave modes can be represented as a lattice in the positive

octant of the space whose axes are nx , ny , and nz . Each point of the lattice
represents one possible mode of equilibrium cavity radiation. The space density of
points in this lattice is unity, so the number of points in any volume is equal to that
volume.

The (x,y) plane in the imaginary space whose axes are (nx ny nz ). Permitted
standing waves in the (nx ny ) plane are indicated by dots at positive integer values
of these axes.

Let be the radial coordinate in (nx ny nz )-space. Then

 2
= nx2 + ny2 + n2z

and
c c
= =
2a

The number N ( )d of independent modes having frequencies in the range to

+ d equals the volume of the spherical octant shell between and + d ,
multiplied by 2 to account for the two independent polarizations of electromagnetic
radiation:
2
4 d
N ( )d = 2
8

2
2a 2a
N ( )d = d
c c

In thermodynamic equilibrium at temperature T , equipartition of energy implies that

each mode has average energy E = kT according to the classical Boltzmann law
(but not according to quantum mechanics). If we proceed using the classical kT for
the average energy per mode, the spectral energy density u (T ) of cavity radiation in
the frequency range to + d is the total energy of all modes in that frequency
range divided by the volume a3 of the cavity:

N ( )d
u (T )d = kT
a3

8 a3 2 2
u (T ) = 3 3 kT = 8 kT 3
a c c

The spectral energy density of radiation (blackbody or not) is spectral energy per
unit volume. It equals the total flow of spectral power per unit area divided by the
flow speed c:

1
u = Id (2C1)
c
Calling the specific intensity of blackbody radiation B and making use of the fact the
blackbody radiation is isotropic, we get for blackbody radiation:

1 4
u = Bd = B
c c

Thus
2
4 8 kT
B =
c c3

and we obtain the Rayleigh-Jeans law for the spectral brightness of blackbody
radiation

2
2kT
B = (2C2)
c2

that is valid only in the low-frequency limit h kT .

Notice that:

1. Brightness is proportional to frequency squared because the volume of a

spherical shell in three dimensions is proportional to frequency squared.
2. We assumed all modes have E = kT , the classical assumption that breaks down
at high frequencies.
3. B diverges at high . This is called the "ultraviolet catastrophe".
4. B is independent of direction.
5. This result derived for a cubical cavity applies to equilibrium radiation in a cavity
of any shape or (large) size, which you can demonstrate by a thought
experiment in which a cubical cavity is connected through a small hole to the
other cavity.

The Planck Radiation Law

The only flaw in the derivation of the Rayleigh-Jeans law is the classical assumption
that each radiation mode can have any energy E . Then the continuous Boltzmann
probability distribution

−E
P (E) exp
kT

implies an average energy per mode

 0
EP (E)dE
E = = kT
0
P (E)dE

Planck postulated that possible mode energies are not continuously distributed, but
rather they are quantized and must satisfy

E = nh n=1 2 3

where h 6 63 10−27 erg s is Planck's constant and n is the number of photons

(particles of light each having energy E = h ) in that mode. Then

−nh
P (E) = P (nh ) exp
kT

and the average energy per mode is calculated by summing over only the discrete
energies permitted instead of integrating over all energies.
−nh
n=0 nh P (nh ) n=0 nh exp kT
E = = −nh
n=0 P (nh ) n=0 exp kT

Evaluating this sum yields

h h (kT )
E = h
= kT
exp kT
−1 exp[h (kT )] − 1

Thus the correct radiation law becomes

2 h (kT )
2kT
B =
c2 exp[h (kT )] − 1

where the first factor is the Rayleigh-Jeans law and the quantity in brackets is the
quantum correction factor.
Planck's law for blackbody radiation is usually written in the form

2h 3 1
B = 2 h
(2C3)
c exp kT −1

This eliminates the ultraviolet catastrophe because integrating over all frequencies
gives a finite integrated brightness a blackbody radiator at temperature T:

T4
B(T ) B (T )d = (2C4)
0

where

2 5 k4 erg
5 67 10−5
15c2 h3 cm2 s K4 sr

is called the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Beware that the dimensionless sr in the

denominator is dropped by many authors.

The spectral energy density per unit solid angle of radiation is just the specific
intensity I divided by the flow rate c. For isotropic radiation, the spectral energy
density is

u =4 I c

so the total radiation energy density u= 0

u d of blackbody radiation is

4 T4
u= (2C5)
c

The quantity a 4 c 7 5657 10−15 erg cm−3 K−4 is called the radiation
constant.

The frequency max at which B , the brightness per unit frequency of a blackbody, is
maximum is the solution of

B
= 0;

it is

max T
59
GHz K

Note that max is smaller than c max 103 GHz T (K), where
 max K
0 29
cm T

is the wavelength at which B , the brightness per unit wavelength, is highest. The
latter equation is the familiar form of Wien's Law used by optical astronomers,
whose spectrometers measure wavelengths instead of frequencies.

The electrical power generated by a warm resistor

A resistor is any electrical device that absorbs all of the electrical power applied to it;
it is the "black body" of electric circuits. Motions of charged particles in a warm
resistor at temperature T 0 K generate electrical noise. The frequency spectrum
of the noise power depends only on the resistor temperature and is independent of
the resistor material. Also, the electrical noise generated is indistinguishable from
the noise coming from an antenna observing a blackbody radiator. Warm resistors
are useful in radio astronomy as standards for calibrating receiver gains, and the
power received by a radio telescope is often described in terms of the "antenna
temperature", the resistor temperature required to generate the same power
thermally. The gain of a radio receiver can be calibrated by connecting it alternately
to hot and cold resistors (called "loads") having known temperatures, and the
amount of noise generated in a receiver can be described by the "receiver
temperature", the temperature of a resistor at the input of an imaginary noiseless
receiver having the same gain that would generate the same noise power output.

The derivation of the electrical power per unit bandwidth P generated by a resistor
is a one-dimensional version of the three-dimensional argument used for blackbody
radiation [Nyquist, H. 1928, Phys. Rev. 32, 110; Barrett, A. H. 1970, Fundamentals
of Radio Astronomy, p. 22-23 (unpublished)]. At radio frequencies, it is often true
that h kT and the Rayleigh-Jeans limit applies. Recall that the Rayleigh-Jeans
derivation of B starts with a large cube of side length a containing standing waves
of thermal radiation. The average energy in each standing-wave mode is E = kT ,
and the number of modes with frequency to + d is proportional to 2 , so
2
B . For the power generated by a resistor, consider two identical resistors at
temperature T connected by a lossless transmission line (e.g., a pair of parallel
wires) of length a much larger than the longest wavelength of interest.

We assume that the transmission line has a characteristic impedance equal to the
resistance of the resistors so that power is efficiently coupled between them. In
equilibrium, the transmission line can only support those standing waves having zero
voltages at the ends; other modes are suppressed by the lossy resistors. The
surviving standing waves satisfy

n
a= n=1 2 3
2

where is the wavelength. Electrical signals do not travel at exactly the speed of
light on a transmission line, but at some slightly lower velocity v c. Thus
2a
n=
v

and, for a , the number of modes per unit frequency is

n 2a
=
v

In thermal equilibrium, the classical Boltzmann law says that each mode has average
energy E = kT , so the average energy per unit frequency E in the transmission
line is

n 2akT
E = kT =
v

This energy takes a time t = a v to flow from one end of the transmission line to
the other, so the classical power (energy per unit time) per unit frequency flowing on
the transmission line is

E
P = = 2kT
t

Note that the velocity v has dropped out. The total spectral power P generated by
the two identical resistors must be 2kT and, by symmetry, the spectral power
generated by each resistor is

P = kT (2C6)

in the limit h kT . This equation is called the Nyquist formula and is the
electrical equivalent of the Rayleigh-Jeans law for radiation. Since the "space" of the
transmission line has only one dimension instead of three, the frequency dependence
 0 2
is instead of .

Still, the Nyquist formula suffers from an "ultraviolet catastrophe" of its own: the
total power integrated over all frequencies diverges. Planck's quantization rule is the
cure for this problem also: the electrical energy in each mode must be an integer
multiple of h , and the corrected version of the Nyquist formula is

h (kT )
P = kT
exp[h (kT )] − 1

where the quantity in large brackets is the same quantization correction previously
found for blackbody radiation. This equation is usually written in the form

h
P = h
(2C7)
exp kT
−1

In many radio-astronomical applications, h kT and the simpler P = kT (Eq. 2C6)

can be used.

At low frequencies kT h, the specific intensity B of blackbody radiation in three

dimensions (solid curve) is proportional to 2 . Its one-dimensional analog, the
spectral power density P of noise generated by a resistor (dashed curve), is
proportional to 0 . Quantization causes both curves to cut off exponentially at high
frequencies.