Internal energy in dissipative relativistic fluids

Abstract

Liu procedure is applied to a first order weakly nonlocal special relativistic fluid. It is shown, that a reasonable relativistic theory is and extended one, where the basic state space contains the momentum density. This property follows from the structure of the energy-momentum balance and the Second Law of thermodynamics. Moreover, the entropy depends on the energy density and the momentum density on a given specific way, indicating that the local rest frame energy density cannot be interpreted as the internal energy, the local rest frame momentum density should be considered, too. The corresponding constitutive relations for the stress and the energy flux are derived.