Heat bath if contact
A heat bath is a system whose heat capacity is so large that when it is in thermal contact with some other system of interest its temperature remains constant. This is because the heat bath is unperturbed when in thermal contact with the system of interest. Thus the heat bath is effectively an infinite reservoir of energy and accessible quantum states at a given temperature. For low rates of heat transfer, the atmosphere is a heat bath.
See also
- Heat
- Heat sink
- Heated bath