Statistical Physics


Code 20081131, Academic Year 2008, First Semester

Syllabus

Foundation of Statistical Physics:
The second and third law of thermodynamics, thermodynamic ensembles, ergodicity, Liouville theorem, The virial theorem.

Ideal gases:
Classical, Fermi and Bose gases, black body radiation, Bose Einstein condensation, Landau diamagnetism, ideal gases with internal degrees of freedom.

Classical non-ideal gases:
The virial expansion, van der Waals fluid, liquid-gas phase transitions.

Phase transitions:
General phenomenology, first and second order phase transitions, models of magnetic systems, lattice gas models, spontaneous symmetry breaking, breaking of ergodicity, Landau theory, mean field approximation, upper and lower critical dimensions, transfer matrix, critical exponents, universality classes, scaling theory.

Fluctuations:
Thermodynamic fluctuations and correlation functions, spatial and temporal correlations, fluctuation-dissipation theorem, Onsager relations.

Course requirement: exercise + final exam