A Thermal Analogue of the Zel’Dovich Effect

Abstract

We analyze in this work anisotropic heat conduction induced by a harmonically oscillating laser source incident on rotating conductors, exploiting an analogy with an effect discovered long ago, called the Zel'dovich effect. We re-covered the main results of a recently published paper that predicts the translational Doppler frequency shift of a thermal wave induced on a sample moving with uniform rectilinear motion. We extend then this framework to take into account the frequency shift of a thermal field propagating on a rotating platform. We show that it coincides with the rotational frequency shift which has been recently observed on surface acoustic waves and hydrodynamic surface waves, called rotational superradiance. Finally, we use an analogy with the Tolman effect to deduce a simple estimate of the average temperature gradient induced by rotation, showing the existence of a new cooling effect associated with heat torque transfer.