Oct 31, 2024  
Rensselaer Catalog 2010-2011 
    
Rensselaer Catalog 2010-2011 [Archived Catalog]

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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



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