Statistical Mechanics Topics (English Photocopy Edition)

Author: (English) Cohen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: Several universities in the London area jointly offer a series of advanced courses to master's students in their final year through online education. This book is one of the textbooks for these courses. Before the book was published, the author had systematically taught the course for over ten years. During the writing process, suggestions were gathered from students, peers, and experts appointed by the publisher, which were then incorporated into the final version. The entire book adopts a unified perspective to address problems in thermodynamics and statistical physics.
Chapter 1 introduces the methodology of statistical mechanics, while Chapter 2 focuses on practical calculations for ideal systems. Approximately half of the content in these chapters is foundational knowledge from undergraduate studies, but it is presented from a higher, fully unified perspective regarding thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
Chapter 3 covers non-ideal gases, with a focus on Virial expansion, partition functions, throttling, and equations of state.
Chapter 4 discusses phase transitions, introducing phase diagrams, symmetry, order parameters, critical exponents, scaling theory, first-order phase transitions, second-order phase transitions, the Ising model, Landau theory, ferroelectrics, binary mixtures, quantum phase transitions, and mean-field theory. This is the key part of the book.
Chapter 5 explores fluctuations and dynamic behavior, with a focus on the correlation properties of fluctuations, Brownian motion, the Langevin equation, and linear response theory. Exercises are provided at the end of each chapter, and solutions can be obtained at http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/p365.htm/.
Four appendices are included at the end of the book for reference during application.