Heat From A Magnetic Field

[Little Bang]

We know that the electron and proton are either attracted or repelled by a magnetic field. I want to look at my favorite the hydrogen atom. Even though it is not likes this I want to view it like we do the earth with north, south, east, and west, and with one pole of a bar magnet located some distance to the east. The energy level that the electron occupies around the proton is a sphere. When the probability of the electron being in the eastern hemisphere is high the atom would move toward or away from the field depending upon which magnetic pole we are using. When the probability of the electron being in the western hemisphere is high the opposite would happen. Wouldn’t this situation create an oscillation that we could detect as heat?

[arkain101]

I thought that all energy transitions or forms create and generate heat energy.

 

Meaning, everything is heat, everything is energy. :)

 

Is this small source of atmoic occilation significant enough to compare with the other forms of atomic motion? Thats the question that comes to my mind here in this.

[CraigD]

We know that the electron and proton are either attracted or repelled by a magnetic field. I want to look at my favorite the hydrogen atom. Even though it is not likes this I want to view it like we do the earth with north, south, east, and west, and with one pole of a bar magnet located some distance to the east. The energy level that the electron occupies around the proton is a sphere. When the probability of the electron being in the eastern hemisphere is high the atom would move toward or away from the field depending upon which magnetic pole we are using.

As LB notes, a hydrogen atoms is not like this, so I don’t think the phenomena he describe occurs.

 

If it did – which, in principle, it could, due to nuclear magnetic moment - the amount of energy gained by the electron through magnetic interaction would have to be enough to make it change orbitals. An important, fundamental feature of the quantum mechanics of atoms is that electrons are forbidden from being “in-between” orbitals, and must “jump” discretely between them, absorbing or emitting discrete photons of energy.

 

The NMM is due to asymmetries in its field of virtual photons of magnetic interaction. Though I’ve not worked out in detail – and doubt I could, without a lot of effort and additional education – I don’t think the NMM results in enough energy to cause one of these “quantum leaps”. If it did, I suspect the leap would be virtual, being undone before it could be measured, by a subsequent magnetic interaction. So the answer to the question

Wouldn’t this situation create an oscillation that we could detect as heat?

is, I think, “no”.

 

Another perspective on this is to imagine what would happen if there were an “energy leak” resulting in electrons in hydrogen (or other) atoms gaining energy mediated by photons with the quarks in their protons, to be radiated as photons of infra-red (or other) radiation. The energy would have to come from somewhere – the largest source being the mass of the proton, which is comprised mostly a complicated “sea” of virtual gluons. These “evaporating protons” would, I’m guessing, at some point become unstable and decay into lower energy particles and photons.

 

This is Proton decay. It’s never been observed, allowing a minimum value for the half-life of protons to be set somewhere around 10[math]^{36}[/math] years. This allows us to set a maximum heat (or other energy) power of hydrogen at about 10[math]^{-27}[/math] W/kg. As far as I know, this is much too low to be detected by any present-day experiment – if it existed, it would be hopelessly lost in the unavoidable – even with the best refrigeration – thermal background noise.

 

None of this should be taken to suggest that magnetic fields due to phenomena other than atomic nuclei can’t produce heat – from the Z machine to the accretion disks of black holes to active galactic nuclei, magnetic fields are observed to produce tremendous amounts of heat.

[Little Bang]

Craig, I think you answered my question. If you could attach a one liter flask as the reservoir for a regular thermometer and then move one pole of a bar magnet back and forth across the reservoir I think we would see a rise in temperature.

[CraigD]

If you could attach a one liter flask as the reservoir for a regular thermometer and then move one pole of a bar magnet back and forth across the reservoir I think we would see a rise in temperature.

I think it would depend on what was in the reservoir.

 

If it were any sort of aqueous solution, a changing magnetic field, such as could be produced by a moving bar magnet, should “twirl” the water molecules, which are strongly chemically polar, heating it.

 

A liquid element, such as mercury (the liquid used in a mercury-in-glass thermometer the oldest kind of “regular” thermometer) isn’t polar, so shouldn’t be affected as much by a changing magnetic field. It’s a conductor, though, so should have an electric current induced, resulting in a little bit of heating from electrical resistance. There would be more current, and thus more heating, if the mercury were arranged to make a circuit, but I’ve never seen a thermometer made like that.

 

My guess it that, using the most precise thermometer and strongest bar magnets available to most armature experimenters, it would be challenging to measure a temperature increase in excess of what would occur due to a 37° C person getting close to a 21° thermometer, and random-like fluctuations in room temperature.