Details of PH3201 (Spring 2025)
| Level: 3 | Type: Theory | Credits: 4.0 |
| Course Code | Course Name | Instructor(s) |
|---|---|---|
| PH3201 | Basic Statistical Mechanics | Anandamohan Ghosh |
| Syllabus |
|---|
| Connection between statistics and thermodynamics; Concept of microstates phase space and its connection to Entropy; Classical Ideal Gas and the Maxwell Boltzmann Distribution, Entropy of mixing and Gibbs Paradox;
Liouvilles Theorem, Microcanonical Ensemble, Canonical Ensemble and Partition Function calculation for various systems; Energy fluctuations in the Canonical Ensemble; Grand Canonical Ensemble; Number Density and Energy Fluctuations in the Grand Canonical ensemble; Quantum Statistics and calculation of the Density matrix for various systems; Indistinguishability of Particles, Symmetric and Anti-Symmetric wave functions and calculation of the the Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac Distribution for a quantum Ideal Gas; Thermodynamic behaviour of an Ideal Bose Gas, Black-Body radiation and other applications of Bose-Einstein statistics; Thermodynamic behaviour of an ideal Fermi gas and various applications of Fermi-Dirac statistics such as Pauli paramagnetism and calculation of Chandasekhar limit in White Dwarf stars; Cluster expansion techniques for interacting systems; Introduction to basic ideas of phase transitions via Ising model and Van der Waals gas, exact solution of the Ising model in 1D; Boltzmanns Equation and the H-Theorem; Description of Einstein-Smoluchowski theory of Brownian motion as a stochastic process; Basic ideas behind the Fokker-Planck and Master equations with simple examples. |
| References |
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Course Credit Options
| Sl. No. | Programme | Semester No | Course Choice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IP | 2 | Core |
| 2 | IP | 4 | Elective |
| 3 | IP | 6 | Not Allowed |
| 4 | MP | 2 | Not Allowed |
| 5 | MP | 4 | Not Allowed |
| 6 | MR | 2 | Elective |
| 7 | MR | 4 | Not Allowed |
| 8 | MS | 10 | Elective |
| 9 | MS | 4 | Not Allowed |
| 10 | MS | 6 | Core |
| 11 | MS | 8 | Elective |
| 12 | RS | 1 | Elective |
| 13 | RS | 2 | Elective |