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
  • 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
  • Grading: The grade will be based on one midterm, take-home exams and the final exam.

Homework