Total emitted energy,, of a black body as a function of its temperature,. The upper (black) curve depicts the Stefan–Boltzmann law,. The lower (blue) curve is total energy according to theWien approximation,
TheStefan–Boltzmann law, also known asStefan's law, describes the intensity of thethermal radiation emitted by matter in terms of that matter'stemperature. It is named forJosef Stefan, who empirically derived the relationship, andLudwig Boltzmann who derived the law theoretically.
For an ideal absorber/emitter orblack body, the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the totalenergy radiated per unitsurface area per unittime (also known as theradiant exitance) is directlyproportional to the fourth power of the black body's temperature,T:
In the general case, the Stefan–Boltzmann law for radiant exitance takes the form:where is theemissivity of the surface emitting the radiation. The emissivity is generally between zero and one. An emissivity of one corresponds to a black body.
To find the totalpower,, radiated from an object, multiply the radiant exitance by the object's surface area,:
Matter that does not absorb all incident radiation emits less total energy than a black body. Emissions are reduced by a factor, where theemissivity,, is a material property which, for most matter, satisfies. Emissivity can in general depend onwavelength, direction, andpolarization. However, the emissivity which appears in the non-directional form of the Stefan–Boltzmann law is thehemispherical total emissivity, which reflects emissions as totaled over all wavelengths, directions, and polarizations.[3]: 60
The form of the Stefan–Boltzmann law that includes emissivity is applicable to all matter, provided that matter is in a state oflocal thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) so that its temperature is well-defined.[3]: 66n, 541 (This is a trivial conclusion, since the emissivity,, is defined to be the quantity that makes this equation valid. What is non-trivial is the proposition that, which is a consequence ofKirchhoff's law of thermal radiation.[4]: 385 )
A so-calledgrey body is a body for which thespectral emissivity is independent of wavelength, so that the total emissivity,, is a constant.[3]: 71 In the more general (and realistic) case, the spectral emissivity depends on wavelength. The total emissivity, as applicable to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, may be calculated as aweighted average of the spectral emissivity, with theblackbody emission spectrum serving as theweighting function. It follows that if the spectral emissivity depends on wavelength then the total emissivity depends on the temperature, i.e.,.[3]: 60 However, if the dependence on wavelength is small, then the dependence on temperature will be small as well.
Wavelength- and subwavelength-scale particles,[5]metamaterials,[6] and other nanostructures[7] are not subject to ray-optical limits and may be designed to have an emissivity greater than 1.
In national andinternational standards documents, the symbol is recommended to denoteradiant exitance; a superscript circle (°) indicates a term relate to a black body.[2] (A subscript "e" is added when it is important to distinguish the energetic (radiometric) quantityradiant exitance,, from the analogous human vision (photometric) quantity,luminous exitance, denoted.[8]) In common usage, the symbol used for radiant exitance (often calledradiant emittance) varies among different texts and in different fields.
TheStefan–Boltzmann law may be expressed as a formula forradiance as a function of temperature. Radiance is measured in watts per square metre persteradian (W⋅m−2⋅sr−1). The Stefan–Boltzmann law for the radiance of a black body is:[9]: 26 [10]
In 1864,John Tyndall presented measurements of the infrared emission by a platinum filament and the corresponding color of the filament.[12][13][14][15]The proportionality to the fourth power of the absolute temperature was deduced byJosef Stefan (1835–1893) in 1877 on the basis of Tyndall's experimental measurements, in the articleÜber die Beziehung zwischen der Wärmestrahlung und der Temperatur (On the relationship between thermal radiation and temperature) in theBulletins from the sessions of the Vienna Academy of Sciences.[16]
A derivation of the law from theoretical considerations was presented byLudwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) in 1884, drawing upon the work ofAdolfo Bartoli.[17]Bartoli in 1876 had derived the existence ofradiation pressure from the principles ofthermodynamics. Following Bartoli, Boltzmann considered an idealheat engine using electromagnetic radiation instead of an ideal gas as working matter.
With his law, Stefan also determined the temperature of theSun's surface.[22] He inferred from the data ofJacques-Louis Soret (1827–1890)[23] that the energy flux density from the Sun is 29 times greater than the energy flux density of a certain warmed metallamella (a thin plate). A round lamella was placed at such a distance from the measuring device that it would be seen at the sameangular diameter as the Sun. Soret estimated the temperature of the lamella to be approximately 1900°C to 2000 °C. Stefan surmised that 1/3 of the energy flux from the Sun is absorbed by theEarth's atmosphere, so he took for the correct Sun's energy flux a value 3/2 times greater than Soret's value, namely 29 × 3/2 = 43.5.
Precise measurements of atmosphericabsorption were not made until 1888 and 1904. The temperature Stefan obtained was a median value of previous ones, 1950 °C and the absolute thermodynamic one 2200 K. As 2.574 = 43.5, it follows from the law that the temperature of the Sun is 2.57 times greater than the temperature of the lamella, so Stefan got a value of 5430 °C or 5700 K. This was the first sensible value for the temperature of the Sun. Before this, values ranging from as low as 1800 °C to as high as13000000 °C[24] were claimed. The lower value of 1800 °C was determined byClaude Pouillet (1790–1868) in 1838 using theDulong–Petit law.[25][26] Pouillet also took just half the value of the Sun's correct energy flux.
The temperature ofstars other than the Sun can be approximated using a similar means by treating the emitted energy as ablack body radiation.[27] So:whereL is theluminosity,σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant,R is the stellar radius andT is theeffective temperature. This formula can then be rearranged to calculate the temperature:or alternatively the radius:
The same formulae can also be simplified to compute the parameters relative to the Sun:where is thesolar radius, and so forth. They can also be rewritten in terms of the surface areaA and radiant exitance:where and
Similarly we can calculate theeffective temperature of the EarthT⊕ by equating the energy received from the Sun and the energy radiated by the Earth, under the black-body approximation (Earth's own production of energy being small enough to be negligible). The luminosity of the Sun,L⊙, is given by:
At Earth, this energy is passing through a sphere with a radius ofa0, the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and theirradiance (received power per unit area) is given by
The Earth has a radius ofR⊕, and therefore has a cross-section of. Theradiant flux (i.e. solar power) absorbed by the Earth is thus given by:
Because the Stefan–Boltzmann law uses a fourth power, it has a stabilizing effect on the exchange and the flux emitted by Earth tends to be equal to the flux absorbed, close to the steady state where:
T⊕ can then be found:whereT⊙ is the temperature of the Sun,R⊙ the radius of the Sun, anda0 is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This gives an effective temperature of 6 °C on the surface of the Earth, assuming that it perfectly absorbs all emission falling on it and has no atmosphere.
The Earth has analbedo of 0.3, meaning that 30% of the solar radiation that hits the planet gets scattered back into space without absorption. The effect of albedo on temperature can be approximated by assuming that the energy absorbed is multiplied by 0.7, but that the planet still radiates as a black body (the latter by definition ofeffective temperature, which is what we are calculating). This approximation reduces the temperature by a factor of 0.71/4, giving 255 K (−18 °C; −1 °F).[28][29]
The above temperature is Earth's as seen from space, not ground temperature but an average over all emitting bodies of Earth from surface to high altitude. Because of thegreenhouse effect, the Earth's actual average surface temperature is about 288 K (15 °C; 59 °F), which is higher than the 255 K (−18 °C; −1 °F) effective temperature, and even higher than the 279 K (6 °C; 43 °F) temperature that a black body would have.
In the above discussion, we have assumed that the whole surface of the earth is at one temperature. Another interesting question is to ask what the temperature of a blackbody surface on the earth would be assuming that it reaches equilibrium with the sunlight falling on it. This of course depends on the angle of the sun on the surface and on how much air the sunlight has gone through. When the sun is at the zenith and the surface is horizontal, the irradiance can be as high as 1120 W/m2.[30] The Stefan–Boltzmann law then gives a temperature ofor 102 °C (216 °F). (Above the atmosphere, the result is even higher: 394 K (121 °C; 250 °F).) We can think of the earth's surface as "trying" to reach equilibrium temperature during the day, but being cooled by the atmosphere, and "trying" to reach equilibrium with starlight and possibly moonlight at night, but being warmed by the atmosphere.
From the definition of energy density it follows thatwhere the energy density of radiation only depends on the temperature, therefore
Now, the equality is after substitution of
Meanwhile, the pressure is the rate of momentum change per unit area. Since the momentum of a photon is the same as the energy divided by the speed of light,where the factor 1/3 comes from the projection of the momentum transfer onto the normal to the wall of the container.
Since the partial derivative can be expressed as a relationship between only and (if one isolates it on one side of the equality), the partial derivative can be replaced by the ordinary derivative. After separating the differentials the equality becomeswhich leads immediately to, with as some constant of integration.
Deriving the Stefan–Boltzmann Law usingPlanck's law.
The law can be derived by considering a small flatblack body surface radiating out into a half-sphere. This derivation usesspherical coordinates, withθ as the zenith angle andφ as the azimuthal angle; and the small flat blackbody surface lies on the xy-plane, whereθ =π/2.
The intensity of the light emitted from the blackbody surface is given byPlanck's law,where
The quantity is thepower radiated by a surface of area A through asolid angledΩ in the frequency range betweenν andν +dν.
The Stefan–Boltzmann law gives the power emitted per unit area of the emitting body,
Note that the cosine appears because black bodies areLambertian (i.e. they obeyLambert's cosine law), meaning that the intensity observed along the sphere will be the actual intensity times the cosine of the zenith angle.To derive the Stefan–Boltzmann law, we must integrate over the half-sphere and integrate from 0 to ∞.
Then we plug in forI:
To evaluate this integral, do a substitution,which gives:
Finally, this proof started out only considering a small flat surface. However, anydifferentiable surface can be approximated by a collection of small flat surfaces. So long as the geometry of the surface does not cause the blackbody to reabsorb its own radiation, the total energy radiated is just the sum of the energies radiated by each surface; and the total surface area is just the sum of the areas of each surface—so this law holds for allconvex blackbodies, too, so long as the surface has the same temperature throughout. The law extends to radiation from non-convex bodies by using the fact that theconvex hull of a black body radiates as though it were itself a black body.
The total energy densityU can be similarly calculated, except the integration is over the whole sphere and there is no cosine, and the energy flux (U c) should be divided by the velocityc to give the energy densityU:Thus is replaced by, giving an extra factor of 4.
Thus, in total:The product is sometimes known as theradiation constant orradiation density constant.[32][33]
The Stefan–Boltzmann law can be expressed as[34]where the flux of photons,, is given byand the average energy per photon,, is given by
Marr and Wilkin (2012) recommend that students be taught about instead of being taughtWien's displacement law, and that the above decomposition be taught when the Stefan–Boltzmann law is taught.[34]
^In his physics textbook of 1875,Adolph Wüllner quoted Tyndall's results and then added estimates of the temperature that corresponded to the platinum filament's color:Wüllner, Adolph (1875).Lehrbuch der Experimentalphysik [Textbook of experimental physics] (in German). Vol. 3. Leipzig, Germany: B.G. Teubner. p. 215.
^FromWüllner 1875, p. 215:"Wie aus gleich zu besprechenden Versuchen von Draper hervorgeht, … also fast um das 12fache zu." (As follows from the experiments of Draper, which will be discussed shortly, a temperature of about 525°[C] corresponds to the weak red glow; a [temperature] of about 1200°[C], to the full white glow. Thus, while the temperature climbed only somewhat more than double, the intensity of the radiation increased from 10.4 to 122; thus, almost 12-fold.)
^Stefan stated (Stefan 1879, p. 421):"Zuerst will ich hier die Bemerkung anführen, … die Wärmestrahlung der vierten Potenz der absoluten Temperatur proportional anzunehmen." (First of all, I want to point out here the observation which Wüllner, in his textbook, added to the report of Tyndall's experiments on the radiation of a platinum wire that was brought to glowing by an electric current, because this observation first caused me to suppose that thermal radiation is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature.)
^Campana, S.; Mangano, V.; Blustin, A. J.; Brown, P.; Burrows, D. N.; Chincarini, G.; Cummings, J. R.; Cusumano, G.; Valle, M. Della; Malesani, D.; Mészáros, P.; Nousek, J. A.; Page, M.; Sakamoto, T.; Waxman, E. (August 2006). "The association of GRB 060218 with a supernova and the evolution of the shock wave".Nature.442 (7106):1008–1010.arXiv:astro-ph/0603279.Bibcode:2006Natur.442.1008C.doi:10.1038/nature04892.ISSN0028-0836.PMID16943830.S2CID119357877.
Stefan, J. (1879)."Über die Beziehung zwischen der Wärmestrahlung und der Temperatur" [On the relationship between heat radiation and temperature](PDF).Sitzungsberichte der Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (in German).79:391–428.