Advanced topics in many-body physics: the quantum ideal gas, classical and quantum transport phenomena, and phase transitions in interacting systems.
| Paper title | Advanced Statistical Mechanics |
|---|---|
| Paper code | PHSI421 |
| Subject | Physics |
| EFTS | 0.0833 |
| Points | 10 points |
| Teaching period | Semester 1 (On campus) |
| Domestic Tuition Fees (NZD) | $704.22 |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Limited to
- BSc(Hons), PGDipSci, MSc
- Contact
- philip.brydon@otago.ac.nz
- Teaching staff
- Dr Philip Brydon
- Textbooks
An introduction to thermal physics, Daniel V. Schroeder, Addison Wesley Longman.
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
- Global perspective, Interdisciplinary perspective, Lifelong learning, Scholarship,
Communication, Critical thinking, Information literacy, Self-motivation, Teamwork.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes. - Learning Outcomes
- After completing this paper students are expected to have achieved the following major
learning objectives:
- Define and use free energies, be able to derive their thermodynamic identities, and extract information from thermodynamic partial derivative relations
- Understand the thermodynamics of systems undergoing a phase transition, with a detailed knowledge of the phase diagram of the van der Waals model
- Be able to define and apply the microcanonical, canonical and grand canonical ensembles appropriately and understand the statistical basis for thermodynamic equilibrium
- Derive thermodynamic properties from a microscopic description of standard systems (e.g. ideal paramagnet, Einstein solid, ideal gas)
- Be able to apply the equipartition theorem and understand its regime of validity
- Be able to explain the effect indistinguishability has on the statistical properties of matter; derive and apply the quantum distribution functions
- Apply the appropriate quantum statistical method to calculate the thermal properties of the standard quantum systems: an ideal Fermi gas, photons in a cavity, and an ideal Bose gas; derive and apply the appropriate density of states for these systems
- Solve the Ising model using the mean-field approximation
