Conservation law

In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical
system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include
conservation of mass-energy, conservation of linear momentum, conservation of angular
momentum, and conservation of electric charge. There are also many approximate conservation
laws, which apply to such quantities as mass, parity,[1] lepton number, baryon number, strangeness,
hypercharge, etc. These quantities are conserved in certain classes of physics processes, but not in
all.

A local conservation law is usually expressed mathematically as a continuity equation, a partial

differential equation which gives a relation between the amount of the quantity and the "transport"
of that quantity. It states that the amount of the conserved quantity at a point or within a volume can
only change by the amount of the quantity which flows in or out of the volume.

From Noether's theorem, every differentiable symmetry leads to a conservation law.[2][3][4] Other
conserved quantities can exist as well.

Conservation laws as fundamental laws of nature

Conservation laws are fundamental to our understanding of the physical world, in that they describe
which processes can or cannot occur in nature. For example, the conservation law of energy states
that the total quantity of energy in an isolated system does not change, though it may change form.
In general, the total quantity of the property governed by that law remains unchanged during
physical processes. With respect to classical physics, conservation laws include conservation of
energy, mass (or matter), linear momentum, angular momentum, and electric charge. With respect
to particle physics, particles cannot be created or destroyed except in pairs, where one is ordinary
and the other is an antiparticle. With respect to symmetries and invariance principles, three special
conservation laws have been described, associated with inversion or reversal of space, time, and
charge.

Conservation laws are considered to be fundamental laws of nature, with broad application in
physics, as well as in other fields such as chemistry, biology, geology, and engineering.

Most conservation laws are exact, or absolute, in the sense that they apply to all possible
processes. Some conservation laws are partial, in that they hold for some processes but not for
others.
One particularly important result concerning conservation laws is Noether's theorem, which states
that there is a one-to-one correspondence between each one of them and a differentiable symmetry
of the Universe. For example, the conservation of energy follows from the uniformity of time and the
conservation of angular momentum arises from the isotropy of space,[2][5][6] i.e. because there is no
preferred direction of space. Notably, there is no conservation law associated with time-reversal,
although more complex conservation laws combining time-reversal with other symmetries are
known.

Exact laws

A partial listing of physical conservation equations due to symmetry that are said to be exact laws,
or more precisely have never been proven to be violated:

Respective Noether Number of independent parameters (i.e.

Conservation law
symmetry invariance dimension of phase space)

Time-translation
Conservation of mass-energy E 1 translation of time along t-axis
invariance

Space-translation
Conservation of linear momentum p 3 translation of space along x,y,z axes
invariance Poincaré

Conservation of angular momentum L Rotation invariance

3 rotation of space about x,y,z axes
=r×p invariance

Conservation of boost 3-vector N = tp - Lorentz-boost Lorentz-boost of space-time along x,y,z

3
Er invariance axes

translation of electrodynamic scalar

Conservation of electric charge U(1)Q Gauge invariance 1 potential field along V-axis (in phase
space)

translation of chromodynamic potential

Conservation of color charge SU(3)C Gauge invariance 3
field along r,g,b-axes (in phase space)

translation of weak potential field along

Conservation of weak isospin SU(2)L Gauge invariance 1
axis in phase space

Conservation of the difference

between baryon and lepton numbers B U(1)B-L Gauge invariance 1
-L

Another exact symmetry is CPT symmetry, the simultaneous inversion of space and time
coordinates, together with swapping all particles with their antiparticles; however being a discrete
symmetry Noether's theorem does not apply to it. Accordingly, the conserved quantity, CPT parity,
can usually not be meaningfully calculated or determined.
Approximate laws

There are also approximate conservation laws. These are approximately true in particular situations,
such as low speeds, short time scales, or certain interactions.

Conservation of mechanical energy

Conservation of mass (approximately true for nonrelativistic speeds)

Conservation of baryon number (See chiral anomaly and sphaleron)

Conservation of lepton number (In the Standard Model)

Conservation of flavor (violated by the weak interaction)

Conservation of strangeness (violated by the weak interaction)

Conservation of space-parity (violated by the weak interaction)

Conservation of charge-parity (violated by the weak interaction)

Conservation of time-parity (violated by the weak interaction)

Conservation of CP parity (violated by the weak interaction); in the Standard Model, this is
equivalent to conservation of time-parity.

Global and local conservation laws

The total amount of some conserved quantity in the universe could remain unchanged if an equal
amount were to appear at one point A and simultaneously disappear from another separate point B.
For example, an amount of energy could appear on Earth without changing the total amount in the
Universe if the same amount of energy were to disappear from some other region of the Universe.
This weak form of "global" conservation is really not a conservation law because it is not Lorentz
invariant, so phenomena like the above do not occur in nature.[7][8] Due to special relativity, if the
appearance of the energy at A and disappearance of the energy at B are simultaneous in one inertial
reference frame, they will not be simultaneous in other inertial reference frames moving with
respect to the first. In a moving frame one will occur before the other; either the energy at A will
appear before or after the energy at B disappears. In both cases, during the interval energy will not
be conserved.

A stronger form of conservation law requires that, for the amount of a conserved quantity at a point
to change, there must be a flow, or flux of the quantity into or out of the point. For example, the
amount of electric charge at a point is never found to change without an electric current into or out
of the point that carries the difference in charge. Since it only involves continuous local changes,
this stronger type of conservation law is Lorentz invariant; a quantity conserved in one reference
frame is conserved in all moving reference frames.[7][8] This is called a local conservation law.[7][8]
Local conservation also implies global conservation; that the total amount of the conserved quantity
in the Universe remains constant. All of the conservation laws listed above are local conservation
laws. A local conservation law is expressed mathematically by a continuity equation, which states
that the change in the quantity in a volume is equal to the total net "flux" of the quantity through the
surface of the volume. The following sections discuss continuity equations in general.

Differential forms

In continuum mechanics, the most general form of an exact conservation law is given by a
continuity equation. For example, conservation of electric charge q is

where ∇⋅ is the divergence operator, ρ is the density of q (amount per unit volume), j is the flux of q
(amount crossing a unit area in unit time), and t is time.

If we assume that the motion u of the charge is a continuous function of position and time, then

In one space dimension this can be put into the form of a homogeneous first-order quasilinear
hyperbolic equation:[9]: 43

where the dependent variable y is called the density of a conserved quantity, and A(y) is called the
current Jacobian, and the subscript notation for partial derivatives has been employed. The more
general inhomogeneous case:

is not a conservation equation but the general kind of balance equation describing a dissipative
system. The dependent variable y is called a nonconserved quantity, and the inhomogeneous term
s(y,x,t) is the-source, or dissipation. For example, balance equations of this kind are the momentum
and energy Navier-Stokes equations, or the entropy balance for a general isolated system.

In the one-dimensional space a conservation equation is a first-order quasilinear hyperbolic

equation that can be put into the advection form:

where the dependent variable y(x,t) is called the density of the conserved (scalar) quantity, and a(y)
is called the current coefficient, usually corresponding to the partial derivative in the conserved
quantity of a current density of the conserved quantity j(y):[9]: 43

In this case since the chain rule applies:

the conservation equation can be put into the current density form:

In a space with more than one dimension the former definition can be extended to an equation that
can be put into the form:

where the conserved quantity is y(r,t), ⋅ denotes the scalar product, ∇ is the nabla operator, here
indicating a gradient, and a(y) is a vector of current coefficients, analogously corresponding to the
divergence of a vector current density associated to the conserved quantity j(y):

This is the case for the continuity equation:

Here the conserved quantity is the mass, with density ρ(r,t) and current density ρu, identical to the
momentum density, while u(r, t) is the flow velocity.

In the general case a conservation equation can be also a system of this kind of equations (a vector
equation) in the form:[9]: 43

where y is called the conserved (vector) quantity, ∇y is its gradient, 0 is the zero vector, and A(y) is
called the Jacobian of the current density. In fact as in the former scalar case, also in the vector
case A(y) usually corresponding to the Jacobian of a current density matrix J(y):

and the conservation equation can be put into the form:

For example, this the case for Euler equations (fluid dynamics). In the simple incompressible case
they are:

where:
 u is the flow velocity vector, with components in a N-dimensional space u1, u2, ..., uN,

s is the specific pressure (pressure per unit density) giving the source term,

It can be shown that the conserved (vector) quantity and the current density matrix for these
equations are respectively:

where denotes the outer product.

Integral and weak forms

Conservation equations can usually also be expressed in integral form: the advantage of the latter is
substantially that it requires less smoothness of the solution, which paves the way to weak form,
extending the class of admissible solutions to include discontinuous solutions.[9]: 62–63 By
integrating in any space-time domain the current density form in 1-D space:

and by using Green's theorem, the integral form is:

In a similar fashion, for the scalar multidimensional space, the integral form is:

where the line integration is performed along the boundary of the domain, in an anticlockwise
manner.[9]: 62–63

Moreover, by defining a test function φ(r,t) continuously differentiable both in time and space with
compact support, the weak form can be obtained pivoting on the initial condition. In 1-D space it is:

In the weak form all the partial derivatives of the density and current density have been passed on to
the test function, which with the former hypothesis is sufficiently smooth to admit these
derivatives.[9]: 62–63
See also

Invariant (physics)

Momentum
Cauchy momentum equation

Energy
Conservation of energy and the First law of thermodynamics

Conservative system

Conserved quantity
Some kinds of helicity are conserved in dissipationless limit: hydrodynamical helicity,
magnetic helicity, cross-helicity.

Principle of mutability

Conservation law of the Stress–energy tensor

Riemann invariant

Philosophy of physics

Totalitarian principle

Convection–diffusion equation

Uniformity of nature

Examples and applications

Advection

Mass conservation, or Continuity equation

Charge conservation

Euler equations (fluid dynamics)

inviscid Burgers equation

Kinematic wave

Conservation of energy

Traffic flow
Notes

1. Lee, T.D.; Yang, C.N. (1956). "Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions" (https://doi.
org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.104.254) . Physical Review. 104 (1): 254–258.
Bibcode:1956PhRv..104..254L (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1956PhRv..104..254L) .
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.104.254 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.104.254) .

2. Ibragimov, N. H. CRC HANDBOOK OF LIE GROUP ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

VOLUME 1 -SYMMETRIES EXACT SOLUTIONS AND CONSERVATION LAWS. (CRC Press, 2023)

3. Kosmann-Schwarzbach, Y. in The Philosophy and Physics of Noether’s Theorems: A Centenary

Volume 4-24 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

4. Rao, A. K., Tripathi, A., Chauhan, B. & Malik, R. P. Noether Theorem and Nilpotency Property of
the (Anti-)BRST Charges in the BRST Formalism: A Brief Review. Universe 8 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.3390/universe8110566

5. Kosmann-Schwarzbach, Y. in The Philosophy and Physics of Noether’s Theorems: A Centenary

Volume 4-24 (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

6. Rao, A. K., Tripathi, A., Chauhan, B. & Malik, R. P. Noether Theorem and Nilpotency Property of
the (Anti-)BRST Charges in the BRST Formalism: A Brief Review. Universe 8 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.3390/universe8110566

7. Aitchison, Ian J. R.; Hey, Anthony J.G. (2012). Gauge Theories in Particle Physics: A Practical
Introduction: From Relativistic Quantum Mechanics to QED, Fourth Edition, Vol. 1 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=-v6sPfuyUt8C&q=%22global+conservation%22+%22local+conservation%
22&pg=PA43) . CRC Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-1466512993. Archived (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20180504190417/https://books.google.com/books?id=-v6sPfuyUt8C&pg=PA43&dq=%22gl
obal+conservation%22+%22local+conservation%22) from the original on 2018-05-04.

8. Will, Clifford M. (1993). Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics (https://books.google.co

m/books?id=BhnUITA7sDIC&q=%22global+conservation%22+%22local+conservation%22+law
&pg=PA105) . Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0521439732. Archived (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20170220012119/https://books.google.com/books?id=BhnUITA7sDIC&pg=PA1
05&dq=%22global+conservation%22+%22local+conservation%22+law) from the original on
2017-02-20.

9. Toro, E.F. (1999). "Chapter 2. Notions on Hyperbolic PDEs". Riemann Solvers and Numerical
Methods for Fluid Dynamics. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-65966-2.
References

Philipson, Schuster, Modeling by Nonlinear Differential Equations: Dissipative and Conservative

Processes, World Scientific Publishing Company 2009.

Victor J. Stenger, 2000. Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes. Buffalo NY:
Prometheus Books. Chpt. 12 is a gentle introduction to symmetry, invariance, and conservation
laws.

E. Godlewski and P.A. Raviart, Hyperbolic systems of conservation laws, Ellipses, 1991.

External links

Media related to Conservation laws at Wikimedia Commons

Conservation Laws (http://www.lightandmatter.com/lm) – Ch. 11–15 in an online textbook