Syllabus
The syllabus , contains information an outline syllabus and recommended texts
Lecture notes, tutorials, handouts, etc are available in two formats:
pdf: these
require acroread or some other viewer.
PostScript: these require ghostview or some other PostScript
previewer to see them onscreen.
They should be printable on any PostScript printer.
The PostScript versions should be identical to the
printed lecture notes.
Lecture Notes
Any errors in the lecture notes (should!) have been corrected in these
online versions. The notes do not contain figures.
N.B.
2006/7 was the first year that I lectured this
course. It broadly follows the path that the previous course took,
therefore most old exam questions should still be relevant.
I will distribute written notes, available here electronically or from me in
hard copy, after the lecture has taken place. Students are encouraged
to take notes in the lectures.
Section 1:
( PostScript ,
PDF )
Information Theory Approach to Statistical Mechanics
Section 2:
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PDF )
Assignment of probabilities and Formulation of Statistical Mechanics
Section 3:
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PDF )
Fluctuations and Response
Section 4:
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Assemblies of Weakly Interacting Constituents
Section 5:
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PDF )
Bose Einstein Condensation
Section 6:
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PDF )
The Many-Body Problem
Section 7:
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PDF )
Interactions in Classical Fluids: Perturbation about the Ideal Gas
Section 8:
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PDF )
Reduced Distribution Functions and Dense Fluids
Section 9:
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Phase Transitions and the Ising Model
Section 10:
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Mean-Field Theory of the Ising Model
Section 11:
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Exact results for the Ising Model
Section 12:
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Landau Theory of Phase Transitions
Section 13:
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Classical Dynamics and the Arrow of Time
Section 14:
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PDF )
Quantum Dynamics, The Master Equation and Detailed Balance
Section 15:
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The Langevin Approach and the Dynamics of Fluctuations
Tutorial Sheets
Tutorial 1:
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PDF )
Maximising the Missing Information
Tutorial 2:
( PostScript ,
PDF )
The Microcanonical, Canonical and Grand Canonical Distrutions
Tutorial 3:
( PostScript ,
PDF )
Quantum Statistical Mechanics
Tutorial 4:
( PostScript ,
PDF )
Phonons; Virial Expansion
Tutorial 5:
( PostScript ,
PDF )
Radial distribution function; Debye-Hueckel Theory
Tutorial 6:
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PDF )
The Ising Model
Tutorial 7:
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PDF )
Landau Theory, Universality
Tutorial 8:
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PDF )
Classical Dynamics, Time's Arrow, Stochastic Dynamics
Other interesting reading
Here's the original article on the information theory
approach to statistical mechanics that we develop
PDF
also some lecture notes
PDF ,
(but note some of the physics is discussed within the density matrix
formulation which we don't cover)
Nice pedagogical article on Legendre transforms to appear
in American Journal of Physics
PDF ,
Nice pedagogical article on Boltzmann's Entropy and Time's Arrow
Physics Today September 1993 p.32
PDF ,
Review of some general ideas behind phase transitions
and mean field theory
PDF ,
