08.128.140 Theoretical Physics 4: Statistical Physics

WiSe 2023/24

Lecturer: Felix Yu [yu001]

Course assistants: Lucas Heger [lheger@students], Riccardo Valencia Tortora [rvalenci], Emanuele Zippo [zippoema]

Email addresses are [username] at uni-mainz.de

  • Lectures are held from 8-10 am (c.t.) on Mondays and 12-2 pm (c.t.) on Tuesdays in Minkowski room, Staudinger Weg 7, 05-119.
  • Discussion sessions are held from 14-16 (c.t.) on Tuesdays (Lucas) and 10-12 on Wednesdays (Riccardo) and 12-14 on Wednesdays (Emanuele).
  • Homeworks are due at the beginning of Monday lectures.
  • Written exam will be on March 1, 2024 from 9-12 pm (s.t.). A second exam will be given on March 27, 2024 from 9-12 pm (s.t.).
  • Students must accumulate 50% of homework credits to be eligible for the exam. Homework credits are given by completing each homework assignment, and each homework assignment is weighted equally.
  • Syllabus
  • Homework 1
  • Homework 2
  • Homework 3
  • Homework 4
  • Homework 5
  • Homework 6
  • Homework 7
  • Homework 8
  • Homework 9
  • Homework 10
  • Homework 11
  • Homework 12
  • Lecture 1 - Introduction, Motivation
  • Lecture 2 - Equilibrium, 0th Law
  • Lecture 3 - First Law, Extensive and Intensive Variables
  • Lecture 4 - Second Law, Cycles, Carnot Engine
  • Lecture 5 - Carnot Efficiency, Clausius's Theorem, Entropy
  • Lecture 6 - Microstates, Macrostates, Ensembles, Boltzmann Distribution
  • Lecture 7 - Kinetic Theory of Gases, Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution, Equipartition Theorem
  • Lecture 8 - More on Equipartition, Virial Theorem, Moments and Cumulants
  • Lecture 9 - Phase space density, Liouville Theorem
  • Lecture 10 - Ergodicity, Streaming and Collision
  • Lecture 11 - BBGKY Hierarchy, Boltzmann Equation
  • Lecture 12 - H-theorem, Irreversibility
  • Lecture 13 - Boltzmann Entropy, Extensivity, Chemical Potential
  • Lecture 14 - Shannon Entropy, Third Law, Gibbs Entropy
  • Lecture 15 - Thermodynamic Potentials, Enthalpy, Helmholtz and Gibbs Free Energy
  • Lecture 16 - Maxwell's Relations
  • Lecture 17 - Stability, Microcanonical Ensemble
  • Lecture 18 - Two-level System, Ideal Gas
  • Lecture 19 - Gibbs paradox, Canonical Ensemble
  • Lecture 20 - Canonical Ensemble Applied, Single vs Multiparticle Partition Functions
  • Lecture 21 - Gibbs Canonical Ensemble, Grand Canonical Ensemble
  • Lecture 22 - Legendre Transforms, Interacting Models
  • Lecture 23 - Photon gas, Phonons, Virial Expansion
  • Lecture 24 - van der Waals Equation, Gibbs Function, Phase Transitions
  • Lecture 25 - Quantum Statistics, Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein Distributions
  • Lecture 26 - Course summary