Differential consequences of balance laws in extended irreversible thermodynamics of rigid heat conductors.

We consider a system of balance laws arising in extended irreversible thermodynamics of rigid heat conductors, together with its differential conse- quences, namely the higher-order system obtained by taking into account the time and space derivatives of the original system. We point out some mathematical properties of the differential consequences, with particular attention to the problem of the propagation of thermal perturbations with finite speed. We prove that, under an opportune choice of the initial conditions, a solution of the Cauchy problem for the system of differential consequences is also a solution of the Cauchy problem for the original system. We investigate the thermodynamic compatibility of the system at hand by applying a generalized Coleman-Noll procedure. On the example of a generalized Guyer-Krumhansl heat-transport model, we show that it is possible to get a hyperbolic system of evolution equations even when the state space is non-local.