The Photonic Foundation of Temperature: Mechanisms of Thermal Equilibrium and Entropy Production
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.22247 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 29 Jan 2026] Title:The Photonic Foundation of Temperature: Mechanisms of Thermal Equilibrium and Entropy Production Authors:David Vaknin View a PDF of the paper titled The Photonic Foundation of Temperature: Mechanisms of Thermal Equilibrium and Entropy Production, by David Vaknin View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:I examine the physical foundations of temperature and thermal equilibrium by identifying photons as the fundamental agents that establish and maintain the characteristic energy scale $E_c = k_B T$ in ordinary matter. While classical thermodynamics successfully describes equilibrium phenomenologically, the realization of thermal distributions requires concrete microscopic mechanisms provided by quantum electrodynamics. We derive the Boltzmann distribution from a minimal differential scaling postulate and show that sustaining thermal equilibrium demands continuous photon exchange with average energy $\langle h\nu \rangle = 2.701\,E_c$, quantifying the energetic throughput necessary to counter radiative losses. Entropy production is shown to arise naturally from inelastic photon scattering that converts high-energy photons into many lower-energy quanta, thereby increasing accessible microstates and driving irreversible evolution toward equilibrium. We establish physical criteria distinguishing genuine thermal equilibrium from purely formal temperature assignments and demonstrate that the classical notion of an infinite thermal reservoir emerges as an effective idealization within a hierarchy of dynamically maintained photon baths. This photonic framework complements phenomenological thermodynamics by providing its microscopic foundation and clarifies the physical meaning of temperature as an emergent collective property of photon-mediated energy exchange. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) Cite as: arXiv:2601.22247 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.22247v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.22247 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: David Vaknin [view email] [v1] Thu, 29 Jan 2026 19:11:00 UTC (21 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled The Photonic Foundation of Temperature: Mechanisms of Thermal Equilibrium and Entropy Production, by David VakninView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-01 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.stat-mech References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)