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Spring 2023 – Lecture Notes on Statistical Mechanics


Note: The icon is a link to a posted pdf file that has been updated for this year's course.

Review of Thermodynamics
pdf  01. Basic Laws. [Updated Jan 31, 2021]
pdf  02. Thermodynamic Potentials. [Updated Jan 31, 2021]
pdf  03. Second-Order Quantities and Useful Relationships. [Updated Apr 7, 2021]
pdf  04. Important Examples of Thermodynamic Systems. [Updated Feb 27, 2021]
pdf  05. Phase Equilibrium and Phase Transitions. [Updated Jan 31, 2021]

Basic Concepts of Statistical Mechanics
pdf  06. Review of Probability and Statistics. [Updated Mar 23, 2022]
pdf  07. Statistical Mechanics and the Distribution Function. [Updated Feb 1, 2021]
pdf  08. Equilibrium Distribution Functions I: The Microcanonical Ensemble. [Updated Mar 3, 2022]
pdf  09. Equilibrium Distribution Functions II: The Canonical Ensemble. [Updated Mar 2, 2022]
pdf  10. Classical Monatomic Ideal Gas. [Updated Mar 4, 2022]
pdf  11. Paramagnetism and Other Simple Systems. [Updated Mar 23, 2022]
pdf  12. Equilibrium Distribution Functions III: The Grand Canonical Ensemble. [Updated Mar 23, 2022]
pdf  13. Mixed Quantum States and the Quantum Canonical Distribution. [Updated Apr 8, 2021]
pdf  14. Quantum Statistics of Identical Particles and Fock Space. [Updated Apr 7, 2021]

Examples of Equilibrium Systems
pdf  15. Quantum Monatomic Ideas Gas and the Classical Limit. [Updated Mar 29, 2021]
pdf  16. The Free Quantum Molecular Gas. [Updated Apr 11, 2021]
pdf  17. Bosons 1: The Free Boson Gas and Bose-Einstein Condensation. [Updated Apr 21, 2021]
pdf  18. Bosons 2: The Photon Gas. [Updated Apr 21, 2021]
pdf  19. Bosons 3: The Phonon Gas. [Updated Apr 14, 2021]
pdf  20. Fermions. 1: The Free Fermion Gas and Electrons in Metals. [Updated Apr 13, 2021]
pdf grey  21. Fermions. 2: Astrophysical Applications. [not covered yet]
pdf  22. Non-Ideal Gases. 1: General Theory. [Updated Apr 30, 2020]
pdf  23. Non-Ideal Gases. 2: Two Important Examples. [Updated Apr 28, 2020]
  24. Magnetism. 2: Diamagnetism. [not covered yet]
pdf  25. Magnetism. 3: Mean-Field Ferromagnetism. [Updated Apr 23, 2021]

Phase Transitions and Renormalization, Non-Equilibrium Systems
pdf  26. The 1D Ising Model (Exact and Renormalization Group Approach). [Updated Apr 23, 2021]
pdf  27. The 2D Ising Model (Renormalization Group Approach). [Updated Apr 27, 2014]
pdf  28. Monte Carlo Simulations 1: The Method (+ Mathematica notebook). [Updated May 1, 2018]
pdf  29. Monte Carlo Simulations 2: 2D Ising Model (+ Mathematica notebook). [Updated Apr 30, 2014]
pdf  30. Critical Phenomena: Scaling and Universality. [Preliminary – Updated Feb 5, 2019]
  31. Non-Equilibrium Theory 1: Transport Phenomena. [not covered yet]
  32. Non-Equilibrium Theory 2: Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem. [not covered yet]

Additional Files
pdf  Index [Updated Apr 22, 2020 – out of date]
pdf  List of Symbols [Updated Apr 11, 2021]

Phys 727:   main  |  schedule  |  lecture notes  |  syllabus  |  announcements
page by luca bombelli <bombelli at olemiss.edu>, modified 24 jan 2023