Statistical Physics

PHY475: Statistical Physics, Winter 1998

Teacher: Miron Kaufman

OFFICE: SI-116, Email:

m.kaufman@popmail.csuohio.edu

Class meets on: TU and TH 4:00-5:50PM in SI-147.

Prerequisites: PHY345 and PHY474.

Textbook: Callen: Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics

Recomended Books: Espinola Introduction to Thermophysics, Zemansky and Dittman Heat and Thermodynamics; Morse Thermal Physics; Reif Statistical and Thermal Physics, Huang Statistical Mechanics

Tentative Schedule

Week#1 Review of Thermodynamics Ch.12
Week#2,3 Microcanonical Ensemble; Application: Einstein Crystal; Paramagnet (Two States) Model Ch.15
Week#4,5 Canonical Ensemble; Applications: Ideal gas; Classical and Einstein Crystals; Paramagnet (Two States) Model; Blackbody Radiation Ch.16
Week#6 Grand-Canonical Ensemble; Application: Ideal Gas Ch.17
Week#7,8 Quantum Statistics: Fermi-Dirac statistics (electron gas approximation of metal) and Bose-Einstein statistics Ch.18
Week#9,10 Phase Transitions: Bose Condensation and Ising Model Ch.20

Important Dates

No class: TH, February 12.
Last day to drop the course: F, February 13.

Exams Schedule

Exam #1 TU, February 10
Exam #2 TU, March 17, 4-6PM

The final grade is a weighted average of:

Exam #1 35%
Exam #2 45%
Homework, Quizzes 10%
Computer Project 10%

Part of the course is a group project in the computer lab of the Mathematics Department Rhodes Tower 15 'th floor. We will work nontrivial problems in Statistical Physics by using MathCad6 on the following dates:

TH, January 22:
Computer lab #1: Tutorial and Gamma Function
Computer lab #2: Einstein Crystal
TH, February 19:
Computer lab #3: Electromagnetic Radiation
Computer lab #4: Magnetic Cooling
TH, March 5:
Computer lab #5: Bose-Einstein Condensation

HOMEWORK

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PHY475: Statistical Physics, Winter 1998

Tentative Schedule

Important Dates

Exams Schedule

The final grade is a weighted average of:

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