Violation of the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics in Systems with Negative Specific Heat

We show that systems with negative specific heat can violate the zeroth law of thermodynamics. By both numerical simulations and by using exact expressions for free energy and microcanonical entropy, it is shown that if two systems with the same intensive parameters but with negative specific heat are thermally coupled, they undergo a process in which the total entropy increases irreversibly. The final equilibrium is such that two phases appear; that is, the subsystems have different magnetizations and internal energies at temperatures which are equal in both systems, but that can be different from the initial temperature.

Figure 1

Caloric curves ($T$ vs $\epsilon$) in the canonical (black dashed line) and microcanonical (solid red curve) ensemble for the model (1) obtained from the exact expressions (3, 5), $K=-0.178$.

Figure 2

Total entropy per particle $s(\epsilon ,{\epsilon }_1)$ for the coupled subsystems canonical (black curve) and microcanonical [gray (red) curve]. The dotted line indicates the value of energy density before coupling, for identical subsystems with negative specific heat. The values of the parameters are $K_1=K_2=-0.178$, $\epsilon =0.55597$.

Figure 3

Temporal evolution of energy density (top) and magnetization (bottom) of subsystem 1 (black curves) and subsystem 2 [gray (red) curves], using the coupling $H_{\mathrm{int}}^p$. The curves were obtained by averaging over a sliding time window. The values of parameters are $K_1=K_2=-0.178$, $N_1=N_2=5000$, $\eta =0.1$, $N_{\mathrm{int}}=10$, ${\epsilon }_1^0={\epsilon }_2^0=0.55597$.