Sample
lecture schedule
(based on 25 lectures each
of duration 75 minutes).
- Lecture 1:
Review
of thermodynamics.
- Lecture 2:
Review
of basic statistical physics.
- Lecture 3:
Canonical
ensemble 1 (partition function, Helmholtz free energy.)
- Lecture 4:
Canonical
ensemble 2 ( examples)
- Lecture 5:
Grand
canonical ensemble 1 (chemical potential)
- Lecture 6:
Grand
canonical ensemble 2 (examples)
- Lecture 7:
Formulation
of quantum statistics: density matrix.
- Lecture 8:
Photons,
the Planck distribution, and thermal radiation.
- Lecture 9:
Lattice
vibrations and Debye theory.
- Lecture 10:
Ideal
Bose gas and Bose condensation.
- Lecture 11:
Ideal
Fermi system: degenerate electron gas in metals.
- Lecture 12:
Magnetic
behavior of an ideal Fermi gas: Pauli paramagnetism and Landau
diamagnetism.
- Lecture 13:
Virial
expansion; cluster expansion.
- Lecture 14:
First-order
phase transitions.
- Lecture 15:
Mean
field theory.
- Lecture 16:
Ising
model (1d).
- Lecture 17:
Ising
model (2d).
- Lecture 18:
Second-order
phase transitions.
- Lecture 19:
Critical
phenomena, scaling.
- Lecture 20:
Brownian
motion: Langevin theory.
- Lecture 21:
Brownian
motion: Fokker-Planck theory.
- Lecture 22:
Transport
phenomena: conduction (Drude theory), diffusion, thermal transport.
- Lecture 23:
Onsager
relation, fluctuation-dissipation theorem.
- Lecture 24:
Far
from equilibrium systems; non-ergodicity.
- Lecture 25:
Special
topics.
Possible
special topics: Density functional theory of dense liquids,
Hydrodynamics, Transport equations, surfaces, evaporation and
condensation.
Webmaster: SCH
Copyright ©
2009 Duke University