Statistical Physics

4 units · Graduate courses (200-299)

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Microstates and macrostates, statistical ensembles, entropy and other thermodynamic functions, equilibrium, variational principles, functional integration methods. Applications: ideal gas, oscillators, rotors, elasticity, paramagnetism. Indistinguishable particles, Fermi/Dirac and Bose/Einstein distributions. Applications: electron gas, neutron stars, white dwarfs, Bose/Einstein condensation. Kinetics. Letter grading.