Syllabus (Spring 2009)
- The required book for this class is either R. K. Pathria, Statistical Mechanics or L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics (Part 1).
- Some may find these books useful: Walter Greiner, Ludwig Neise, Horst Stöcker, Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; M. Kardar, Statistical physics of particles. These will be on reserve in the library.
- Classes are held in CLRE 207 MWF 2pm. Class attendance is not required.
- 6 problems sets will be due on Mondays. The problem sets will be due on Feb 9, 23, Mar 9, Mar 30, Apr 13, Apr 27.
- We will hold a midterm on March 13 during class and a final on May 5, 1:30pm-4pm. Midterm and final attendance is required.
- The final grade consist of the midterm (20%), problem sets (40%) and the final (40%). The lowest homework grade will be dropped.
- Covered topics include:
- Statistical weight, entropy, temperature, microcanonical ensemble
- Thermodynamic potentials
- Ideal gas, Boltzmann and Maxwell distributions
- Gibbs distribution (canonical ensemble and grand canonical ensemble)
- Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein distributions
- Fluctuations
- Phase transitions
- Out of equilibrium phenomena
- Office Hours: F617, Gamow Tower, Thursdays 3pm-5pm.