The behavior of a classical charged point particle under the influence of only a Coulombic binding potential and classical electromagnetic zero-point radiation, is shown to yield agreement with the probability density distribution of Schrdinger's wave equation for the ground state of hydrogen. These results, obtained without any fitting parameters, again raise the possibility that the main tenets of stochastic electrodynamics (SED) are correct, thereby potentially providing a more fundamental basis of quantum mechanics. The present methods should help propel yet deeper investigations into SED.

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Building upon previous work, several new thermodynamic properties are found for classical electromagnetic random radiation in thermal equilibrium with classical electric dipole harmonic oscillators. Entropy is calculated as a function of temperature and as a function of the positions of the dipole oscillators. In the process, a new derivation is obtained for what is often called Wien s displacement law. The original derivation of this law makes a number of implicit assumptions not found in the present derivation, which prevents the original analysis from being sufficiently general to address an important class of thermal radiation spectrum candidates: namely, those that are nonzero at T=0. While leading up to the entropy calculation, a number of other thermodynamic properties are deduced. For example, a natural development is presented for reformulating the Stefan-Boltzmann law to correspond to experimental observations about changes in thermal radiation energy. Also, the Rayleigh-Jeans spectrum is shown to conflict with basic concepts of thermodynamic processes, and asymptotic limits are found for the spectrum of classical electromagnetic thermal radiation. One asymptotic restriction arises from the demand of finite specific heat for thermal radiation. This restriction is sufficient to ensure that the classical electrodynamic system of dipole oscillators and thermal radiation must obey the third law of thermodynamics. The calculations described here include full nonperturbative evaluations of retarded van der Waals thermodynarnic functions.

A key part of the early thermodynamic work on blackbody radiation by Wien, Stefan, Boltzmann, Planck, and others involved the thermodynamic behavior of a movable piston sliding in a cylinder containing classical electromagnetic thermal radiation. This early work used only classical physics concepts. Here, this analysis is reinvestigated with the change that the implicit assumption is not made that the thermal radiation spectrum reduces to zero at the temperature T =0. Previous work has shown that this consideration may be an important one to yield agreement, or at least better agreement, between classical physical theory and the actual physical behavior of molecular, atomic, and subatomic systems in nature. Indeed, the present analysis on "cavity thermodynamics" accounts for the thermodynamic behavior of Casimir forces between the walls of the cavity. Using only the traditional thermodynamic definition of T =0, the form of the classical electromagnetic zero-point (ZP) radiation spectrum is deduced. From the second law of thermodynamics, two forms of Wien's displacement law are obtained and generalized to include the possibility of ZP radiation. The entropy is then explicitly calculated for the parallel-plate case. Also, the limiting situation of high-temperature radiation between the plates and low temperature outside is examined to recover the early analysis by Wien, Planck, and others. Most of the analysis is carried out for two parallel conducting plates bathed in thermal radiation; the Appendix extends this analysis to a rectangular conducting box with a movable interior wall.PACS number(s): 05.90.+m, 03.50.De, 05.40.+ j thermodynamic operations performed upon a cavity containing blackbody radiation. In particular, here the thermodynamic operations are investigated of (i) quasistatically displacing two conducting parallel plates from each other that are bathed in classical electromagnetic thermal radiation, as well as (ii) slowly changing the temperature of the system. The Appendix (see Ref.[16]) indicates how this analysis can be extended to a hollow box with conducting walls, where one of the walls of the box can be displaced. Thus this analysis is closely connected to the early work by researchers around 1900 involving a closed cylinder at some temperature, with a movable pis-45 1992 The American Physical Society 8472 DANIEL C. COLE 45 ton at one end.As we will see, by including the possibility that the thermal radiation spectrum is nonzero at T =0, the classical electromagnetic ZP spectrum of p(co)=@co /c can be deduced strictly from the thermodynamic definition of absolute zero temperature. Other points obtained here include (i) thermodynamically accounting for Casimir forces in the analysis, (ii) derivations of two distinct forms of the Wien displacement law when ZP radiation is present, and (iii) a calculation of the entropy associated with classical electromagnetic thermal radiation between two plates, as a function of both temperature and volume.These last properties have not been found before when Z...

Depletion interactions in colloidal suspensions confined between two parallel plates are investigated by using acceptance ratio method with grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo simulation. The numerical results show that both the depletion potential and depletion force are affected by the confinement from the two parallel plates. Furthermore, it is found that in the grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo simulation, the depletion interactions are strongly affected by the generalized chemical potential.