Statistical Physics

Period of duration of course
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Course info
Number of course hours
60
Number of hours of lecturers of reference
60
Number of hours of supplementary teaching
0
CFU 9
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Type of exam

Written and oral exam

Lecturer

View lecturer details

Prerequisites

III Year

Programme

Basic notions of Thermodynamics. Principles of Statistical Mechanics. Microcanonical and canonical ensembles. Ideal gases and van der Waals gas. Phase equlibrium. Grand canonical ensemble. Bose and Fermi gases. Diamagnetism and paramagnetism. Ferromagnetism: variational method and mean field. Two-dimensional Ising model: Kramers-Wannier duality. An introduction to Conformal Invariance. The approach of equilibrium.

 

Educational aims

Exposing students to a detailed description of equilibrium Statistical Physics, with emphasis also on its formal links with Quantum Mechanics, while also exploring important applications to atoms, molecules and other systems. The examples will touch upon ideas and results to be revisited in more advanced courses, and will occasionally highlight the limits of our current understanding. Some aspects of the approach of equilibrium will be addressed.

Bibliographical references

L.D. Landau and E. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics, part 1 and 2; K. Hwang, Statistical Mechanics;  Chandler, Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics;  C. Heissenberg and A. Sagnotti, "Classical and Quantum Statistical Physics" (Cambridge U. Press, 2022).