Thermodynamics of a photon gas in nonlinear electrodynamics

In this paper we analyze the thermodynamic properties of a photon gas under the influence of a background electromagnetic field in the context of any nonlinear electrodynamics. Neglecting the self-interaction of photons, we obtain a general expression for the grand canonical potential. Particularizing for the case when the background field is uniform, we determine the pressure and the energy density for the photon gas. Although the pressure and the energy density change when compared with the standard case, the relationship between them remains unaltered, namely ρ=3pρ=3p. Finally, we apply the developed formulation to the cases of Heisenberg–Euler and Born–Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics. For the Heisenberg–Euler case, we show that our formalism recovers the results obtained with the 2-loop thermal effective action approach.