Astrophysics (Index)About

specific heat

(specific heat capacity)
(ratio of added temperature to added heat for a material)

Specific heat (specific heat capacity) is the ratio of a substance's temperature-increase to the amount of heat energy added to the substance, for a unit mass of the substance. For a gas, the ratio also depends upon its pressure and volume, which are affected by the added heat as well as the pressure or container that is holding the gas together and gas specific heat values are generally cited specifying two particular cases: for heat being added while simultaneously adjusting the pressure such that the volume remains constant (CV), and for heat being added while simultaneously adjusting the volume such that the pressure remains constant (CP). The ratio of these two ratios (CV/CP) is a useful value, which is known as the adiabatic index (γ). An index of 5/3 is well-known as a reasonable model of monatomic gases, a common state within stars. The possible indexes are used in simple stellar structure models to determine whether convection is taking place (mixing length theory) and can be used in polytrope equations of state in modeling convective stars.

Solids, which do not fill a volume in the manner of gases, generally have a single cited specific heat capacity.


(physics,thermodynamics,temperature,measure)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity_ratio
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/spht.html
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/specheat.html
https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/University_Physics/Book%3A_Physics_(Boundless)/13%3A_Heat_and_Heat_Transfer/13.2%3A_Specific_Heat

Referenced by page:
thermal inertia

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