Statistical Physics (PHYS331)
Basics of statistical mechanics; Interactions between macroscopic systems: energy, heat, and work; Statistical thermodynamics: irreversibility, temperature, entropy, heat reservoir, and laws of thermodynamics; Boltzmann’s distribution; Partition function; Statistical de?nition of thermodynamic potentials; Von Neumann’s entropy; Applications of statistical physics: ideal gases, heat engines and refrigerators, equipartition theorem and applications to solids, monoatomic molecules, black body radiation etc. Microcanonical and canonical ensembles; Information theory.