Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 28, 2026

Esophageal Heat Transfer for Patient Temperature Control and Targeted Temperature Management
Published on: November 21, 2017
The quasi-low temperature behaviour of specific heat
1Lebedev Research Center in Physics, Leninsky Prospekt 53, str. 11 (38), Moscow 119991, Russia.
Abstract:
A new mathematical approach to condensed matter physics, based on the finite temperature field theory, was recently proposed. The field theory is a scale-free formalism; thus, it denies absolute values of thermodynamic temperature and uses dimensionless thermal variables, which are obtained with the group velocities of sound and the interatomic distance. This formalism was previously applied to the specific heat of condensed matter and predicted its fourth power of temperature behaviour at sufficiently low temperatures, which was tested by experimental data for diamond lattice materials. The range of temperatures with the quartic law varies for different materials; therefore, it is called the quasi-low temperature regime. The quasi-low temperature behaviour of specific heat is verified here with experimental data for the fcc lattice materials, silver chloride and lithium iodide. The conjecture that the fourth order behaviour is universal for all condensed matter systems has also supported the data for glassy matter: vitreous silica. This law is long known to hold for the bcc solid helium-4. The characteristic temperatures of the threshold of the quasi-low temperature regime are found for the studied materials. The scaling in the specific heat of condensed matter is expressed by the dimensionless parameter, which is explored with the data for several glasses. The explanation of the correlation of the 'boson peak' temperature with the shear velocity is proposed. The critique of the Debye theory of specific heat and the Born-von Karman model of the lattice dynamics is given.
Related Concept Videos
Specific Heat
For example, increasing the temperature of one gram of water by 1°C requires one calorie of heat energy and can be written as 1 cal/g-°C, or...
Heat Flow and Specific Heat
Quantifying Heat
Heating and Cooling Curves
For instance, the addition of heat raises the temperature of a solid; the amount of heat absorbed depends on the heat capacity of the solid (q = mcsolidΔT). According to thermochemistry, the relation between the amount of heat absorbed or released by a substance, q, and its...
Responses to Heat and Cold Stress
Effects of Temperature on Free Energy

