What is chemical potential of photon gas zero?
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In physics, a photon gas is a gas-like collection of photons, which has many of the same properties of a conventional gas like hydrogen or neon – including pressure, temperature, and entropy. The most common example of a photon gas in equilibrium is black body radiation.
A massive ideal gas with only one type of particle is uniquely described by three state functions such as the temperature, volume, and the number of particles. However, for a black body, the energy distribution is established by the interaction of the photons with matter, usually the walls of the container. In this interaction, the number of photons is not conserved. As a result, the chemical potential of the black body photon gas is zero. The number of state variables needed to describe a black body state is thus reduced from three to two (e.g. temperature and volume).
A massive ideal gas with only one type of particle is uniquely described by three state functions such as the temperature, volume, and the number of particles. However, for a black body, the energy distribution is established by the interaction of the photons with matter, usually the walls of the container. In this interaction, the number of photons is not conserved. As a result, the chemical potential of the black body photon gas is zero. The number of state variables needed to describe a black body state is thus reduced from three to two (e.g. temperature and volume).
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