Statistical Thermodynamics
0351.3209
Undergraduate course, Semester A, 2010/2011
Monday, 16:00-19:00, Ornstein 110
Announcements:
Lecturer: Haim Diamant
(Ornstein 404A, 6967, hdiamant@tau.ac.il)
Teaching Assistant:
Mr. Shlomi Reuveni
(Ornstein 218, 5658, shlomire@tau.ac.il)
Mailing
list
Course fact sheet including a detailed syllabus
Bibliography
Program
- Lecture 1 (18/10/10)
- The context of statistical thermodynamics: why study large systems separately?
- Reminder of thermodynamics: thermodynamic laws, thermodynamic potentials, natural
variables
- Reminder of statistics: discrete probability distributions, continuous probability distributions, moments
Simulation of irreversibility in a gas of hard disks (requires Java)
- Lecture 2 (25/10/10)
- Underlying assumptions:
ergodicity, Gibbs' entropy, the fundamental postulate
- Ensembles
- Microcanonical ensemble
- Tutoring: system of two-state particles;
entropy of mixing; negative temperature
Exercise #1
Solution #1
- Lecture 3 (1/11/10)
- Tutoring: system of independent harmonic oscillators
- Systems in thermal contact
- Canonical ensemble: Boltzmann distribution, canonical partition function
- Lecture 4 (8/11/10)
- Canonical ensemble (cont.): Helmholtz free energy
- Tutoring in the canonical ensemble:
system of two-state particles; system of independent
harmonic oscillators.
Exercise #2
Solution #2
(courtesy of Mr. Tal Levy)
- Lecture 5 (15/11/10)
- Fluctuations and ensemble equivalence
- Non-degenerate monoatomic ideal gas
- Lecture 6 (22/11/10)
- Non-degenerate monoatomic ideal gas (cont.)
- Non-degenerate molecular ideal gas
- Tutoring: rotational degrees of freedom in a diatomic ideal gas
Exercise #3
Solution #3
Article addressing Ex3/Q4
- Lecture 7 (29/11/10)
- Classical statistical thermodynamics
- Classical ideal gas
- Equipartition principle
- Lecture 8 (6/12/10)
- Nonideal gas: second virial coefficient; van der Waals equation of state
Exercise #4
Solution #4
- Lecture 9 (13/12/10)
- Tutoring: freely jointed chain
- Lecture 10 (20/12/10)
- Systems in thermal and diffusive contact
- Grand-canonical ensemble: Gibbs distribution, grand-canonical partition function
- Lecture 11 (27/12/10)
- Tutoring: non-degenerate ideal gas in the grand-canonical ensemble
- Degenerate ideal gases: Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein distributions
Exercise #5
Solution #5
- Lecture 12 (3/1/11)
- Fermionic gas:
density of states, Fermi energy, internal energy at T=0, thermodynamic
properties at T>0
- Lecture 13 (10/1/11)
- Bosonic gas: Bose-Einstein condensation
- Correlations in liquids
Exercise #6
Solution #6
- Lecture 14 (17/1/11)
- Correlations in liquids (cont.)
- Thermal radiation
Past exams
2009/2010 A
2009/2010 B