Relativistic hydrodynamics from the single-generator bracket formalism of nonequilibrium thermodynamics

Abstract

We employ the generalized bracket formalism of nonequilibrium thermodynamics by Beris and Edwards to derive Lorentz-covariant time-evolution equations for an imperfect fluid with viscosity, dilatational viscosity, and thermal conductivity. Following closely the analysis presented by Öttinger (Physica A, 259, 1998, 24–42; Physica A, 254, 1998, 433–450) to the same problem but for the GENERIC formalism, we include in the set of hydrodynamic variables a covariant vector playing the role of a generalized thermal force and a covariant tensor closely related to the velocity gradient tensor. In our work here, we derive first the nonrelativistic equations and then we proceed to obtain the relativistic ones by elevating the thermal variable to a four-vector, the mechanical force variable to a four-by-four tensor, and by representing the Hamiltonian of the system with the time component of the energy-momentum tensor. For the Poisson and dissipation brackets we assume the same general structure as in the nonrelativistic case, but with the phenomenological coefficients in the dissipation bracket describing friction to heat and viscous effects being properly constrained for the resulting dynamic equations to be manifest Lorentz-covariant. The final relativistic equations are identical to those derived by Öttinger but the present approach seems to be more general in the sense that one could think of alternative forms of the phenomenological coefficients describing friction that could ensure Lorentz-covariance.