Course syllabus
Fall 2014
- Instructor: Y.-C. Lin (my homepage)
- Class Meetings: Tue. 3:10 - 6:00 p.m. (in 270402)
- Course Materials:
This course does not follow a particular textbook. The following are useful reference books and essentially cover the course material:- M. KARDAR
Statistical Physics of Particles - P. K. PATHRIA
Statistical Mechanics - K. HUANG
Introduction to Statistical Physics - M. KARDAR
Statistical Physics of Fields
- M. KARDAR
- Topics Covered:
- Review of Thermodynamics
laws of thermodynamics; thermodynamic processes; thermodynamic entropy; approach to equilibrium and thermodynamic potentials - Entropy
microstates vs. macrostates; the statistical definition of entropy; entropy in information theory - Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics
ensemble theory; maximum entropy principle; microcanonical ensemble; canonical ensemble; grand canonical ensemble - Quantum Statistical Mechanics
systems of identical particles; occupation number representation; ideal Fermi gases; free electron model of metals; ideal Bose gases; Bose-Einstein condensate; black body radiation - Phase Transitions
classification of phase transitions; statistical models of phase transitions; Ginzburg-Landau theory; the Ising model in 1D and 2D; Monte Carlo method; renormalization group
- Review of Thermodynamics
- Grading: The grade will be based on one midterm, take-home exams and the final exam.