Lecturer:
Stefan Sint
Lectures:
Tue, 11:00 - 11:50 Synge
Wed, 10:00 - 10:50 Synge
Fri, 11:00 - 11:50 Synge
- Synopsis
Review of Thermodynamics. Classical Statistical Mechanics: microcanonical,
canonical and grand canonical ensembles. Classical ideal gas, inclusion of
interactions, van-der Waals gas, the cluster expansion and virial
coefficients, first order phase transition. Quantum Statistical Mechanics:
density matrix formalism, Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics, free
Fermi gas, free Bose gas, Bose-Einstein condensation, photon gas (black
body radiation), phonons in a solid (Debye model). Chemical reactions, law
of mass action. Applications to Astrophysics: white dwarf stars, Saha
ionisation formula, neutron stars. Magnetic properties of Fermi systems:
Landau diamagnetism, Pauli paramagnetism. Ising Model of a Ferromagnet,
brief introduction to mean field theory, critical phenomena and the
renormalisation group.
- Assignments
The assignments are graded by SS TP student Emer Brady (email: bradyem AT
tcd.ie)
assignment 1 (due Wednesday 29 October
2008 in class).
assignment 2 (due Friday 14 November 2008
in class).
assignment 3 (due Tuesday 2 December 2008
in class).
assignment 4 (due Friday 9 January 2009 in
class).
assignment 5 (due Friday 30 January 2009 in
class).
assignment 6 (due Wednesday 1 April 2009 in
class).
- Textbooks
1. L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, ``Statistical Physics''
2. K. Huang, `Statistical Mechanics''
3. I. Sachs, S. Sen and J. Sexton, ``Elements of Statistical Mechanics"
4. R. K. Pathria, ``Statistical Mechanics''
- Assessment
The final grade will be a convolution of the
3 hour end-of-year examination and the continuous assessment based on the
assignments. However, the assignments will count at most 10 per cent
towards the final grade.
Last modified: 30 Oct 2008