Oct 30, 2025  
Rensselaer Catalog 2015-2016 
    
Catalog Navigation
  Catalog Home
  Degrees Offered
  Academic Calendar
  Information Directory
  Rensselaer in Brief
  Educational Programs and Resources
  Research Resources and Centers
  Student Life
  Admissions
  Financial Aid
  Tuition and Fees
  Academic Information and Regulations
  Interdisciplinary Studies
  Schools & Departments
  Schools
  Departments
  Programs
  Subject Codes
  Courses
  Administration
  Named Professorships
  The Faculty
  My Portfolio
HELP
Rensselaer Catalog 2015-2016 [Archived Catalog]

Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)

PHYS 6590 - Statistical Mechanics

Review of thermodynamics, probability, and statistics. Statistical basis of thermodynamics, various ensembles, quantum statistics. Ideal Fermi and Bose gases and applications to solids and the black-body radiation. Interacting systems, phase transitions, and critical phenomena. Phase transition in the Van der Waals gas and in the Ising ferromagnet. Mean-field approximation and Landau theory of continuous phase transitions. Random walk, diffusion, Brownian motion, and Langevin equation. Stochastic processes.

Prerequisites/Corequisites: Prerequisite: PHYS 6510.

When Offered: Fall term annually.



Credit Hours: 4


Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)