Instructor: Silas Beane
Office: DEM 209E
Phone: 603-862-2720
email:
silas at physics.unh.edu web: http://www.physics.unh.edu/~silas
Office hours: to be determined
I strongly encourage students to communicate with me by email for
bureaucratic issues. At times, I'll communicate with the class by email.
Please, no physics questions via email!
If necessary, you may visit me outside of office hours but please do
not be offended if I'm unable to speak with you immediately.
The grades for this course will be based on homework (60%), a take-home midterm exam (20%) and a take-home final exam (20%). The final exam will be comprehensive.
You will have two weeks to complete each homework set;
there will be
six homework assignments. The homeworks will be long and
difficult. If you start working on an assignment
the day before
it's due, you will not finish it in time. Late homeworks will not be
accepted unless there is a compelling rationale.
I encourage you to work on the homework in groups. However, you must list your collaborators on
your
manuscript.
There is no collaboration permitted on the exams.
I believe that most of what you'll get out of this class will be
from the homeworks. Due to the large amount of material that must be
covered, generally I will present the theoretical
formalism and the worked problems will be left to the homework.
Some useful texts
(on reserve in the library)
L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifschitz, Statistical Mechanics
(part I)
L.E. Reichl , Statistical Physics
D.L. Goodstein , States of Matter
R. Feynman: The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Calendar (topics covered & homework)
|
Week |
|||
| 1: 1/17,1/19 |
Introduction Thermodynamic variables Laws of thermodynamics |
Homework 1 (ps,pdf)(Due 2/2) | |
| 2: 1/24, 1/26 |
Thermodynamic
potentials Thermodynamic derivatives Magnetic variables |
||
| 3: 1/31, 2/2 |
Elementary
probability theory Liouville's theorem Microcanonical ensemble |
Homework 2 (ps,pdf)(Due 2/16) | |
| 4:
2/7,2/9 |
Microcanonical
ensemble (cont.) Statistical basis of thermodynamics: the ideal gas Gibb's paradox and entropy of mixing |
||
| 5: 2/14, 2/16 |
Canonical
ensemble Applications of the canonical ensemble: the ideal gas Connection between canonical and microcanonical ensembles |
Homework 3 (ps,pdf)(Due 3/2) | |
| 6: 2/21, 2/23 | Applications
of the canonical ensemble: harmonic oscillators Applications of the canonical ensemble: magnetic dipoles |
||
| 7: 2/28, 3/2 | Applications
of the canonical ensemble: magnetic dipoles (cont) Negative temperatures The grand canonical ensemble |
Midterm Exam (ps,pdf)(Due 3/9) | |
| 8: 3/7, 3/9 |
The grand
canonical ensemble (cont) (Tuesday class
replaced with office hour) |
||
| 3/14, 3/16 |
Spring Break |
||
| 9: 3/21, 3/23 |
The grand
canonical ensemble (cont) Quantum statistical mechanics: the density matrix Quantum statistical mechanics: the ensembles |
Homework 4 (ps,pdf)(Due 4/6) | |
| 10: 3/28, 3/30 |
Systems of
indistinguishable particles Density matrix of free particles |
||
| 11: 4/4, 4/6 |
Quantum
ideal gas in canonical ensemble Occupation numbers (4/6 Silas at Fermilab) |
Homework 5 (ps,pdf)(Due 4/20) | |
| 12: 4/11, 4/13 |
Ideal Bose
systems Bose-Einstein condensation (4/11 missed) |
||
| 13: 4/18,
4/20,4/21 |
Blackbody
radiation Ideal Fermi systems Thermodynamics of ideal Fermi systems |
Homework 6 (ps,pdf)(Due 5/4) | |
| 14: 4/25, 4/27 |
Electron
gas in Metals Magnetic properties of ideal Fermi systems Introduction to the Ising model |
||
|
15: 5/2, 5/4 |
Ising
model and binary alloys General formulation 1-d Ising model Mean field theory and spontaneous magnetization |
Final Exam (ps,pdf)(Due 5/11) |
|