Thermal Physics II Lecture Coverage
Week 1
- Monday, Jan. 14, Introduction; Review of Thermal I
- Tuesday, Jan. 15, Review of quantum mechanics: 2-level systems
- Wednesday, Jan. 16, Density operators
- Friday, Jan. 18, QM canonical ensemble: 2-level system; spin-1/2 in field
Week 2
- Monday, Jan. 20, MLK Day, no class.
- Tuesday, Jan. 21, Quantum statistical mechanics, free energy and entropy
- Wednesday, Jan. 22, Entropy and information; Third law of thermodynamics
- Friday, Jan. 24, Shannon entropy; residual entropy of ice
Week 3
- Monday, Jan. 27, Fluctuation formulas; factorization trick
- Tuesday, Jan. 28, Classical harmonic oscillator
- Wednesday, Jan. 29, Quantum harmonic oscillator; Einstein model of crystal
- Friday, Jan. 31, Blackbody radiation
Week 4
- Monday, Feb. 3, Blackbody radiation (historical, thermodynamic)
- Tuesday, Feb. 4, Blackbody implies quantization; Detailed balance and MC simulation
- Wednesday, Feb. 5, MC simulation discussed
- Friday, Feb. 7, Harmonic crystal classical normal modes
Week 5
- Monday, Feb. 10, Harmonic crystal Fourier representation
- Tuesday, Feb. 11, Quantization; vibrational DOS
- Wednesday, Feb. 12, DOS in higher dimension; Quantum ideal gas DOS
- Friday, Feb. 14, Quantum ideal gas (Boltzmann statistics)
Week 6
- Monday, Feb. 17, Quantum ideal gas (grand canonical)
- Tuesday, Feb. 18, Grand canonical potential and derivatives
- Wednesday, Feb. 19, Occupation numbers and distributions
- Friday, Feb. 21, PV=2U/3 and number fluctuations
Week 7
- Monday, Feb. 24, nα(μ) plots
- Tuesday, Feb. 25, μ(T) and nα(T) plots; Bose condensation
- Wednesday, Feb. 26, Bose condensation continued; Cold atoms
- Friday, Feb. 28, Exam review
Week 8
- Monday, March 2, No class, Prof. out of town
- Tuesday, March 3, No class, Prof. out of town
- Wednesday, March 4, Midterm exam #1, covers through Feb. 12
- Friday, March 8, Midsemester break, no class
Spring Break, March 11-15
Week 9
- Monday, March 16, Trial run of MWF 2:30 Zoom Meeting https://cmu.zoom.us/j/652869814
- Tuesday, March 17, Trial run of T 12:30 Zoom Meeting with same meeting-id as above
- Wednesday, March 18, Bose specific heat; Ideal Fermi gas
- Friday, March 20, Fermi chemical potential. Compressibility of metals.
Week 10
- Monday, March 23, Nuclear and astrophysical examples
- Tuesday, March 24, Sommerfeld expansion for metals
- Wednesday, March 25, Fermi gas at low temperatures (Sommerfeld examples)
- Friday, March 27, Energy bands, semiconductors (part 1)
Week 11
- Monday, March 30, Intrinsic and doped semiconductors (part 2)
- Tuesday, March 31, Models of statistical mechanics
- Wednesday, April 1, Exam review
- Friday, April 3, Midterm Exam #2 ("take home")
Week 12
- Monday, April 6, Ising chain, open boundaries
- Tuesday, April 7, Ising chain, periodic boundaries
- Wednesday, April 8, Detailed balance
- Friday, April 10, Monte Carlo simulation of Ising chain
Week 13
- Monday, April 13, Peierls argument for phase transition. MFT part 1
- Tuesday, April 14, Mean field theory of phase transition.
- Wednesday, April 15, High temperature expansion of Ising chain
- Friday, April 17, High T expansion of chain in field; High T for 2D Ising, part 1
Week 14
- Monday, April 20, High temperature expansion of multidimensional Ising model
- Tuesday, April 21, Low temperature expansion of multidimensional Ising model
- Wednesday, April 22, Self-duality of 2D Ising model, critical temperature and exponents (Mathematica notebook for Ising series expansion)
- Friday, April 24, HW discussion: Series coefficient relations and 3D Ising model high T series
Week 15
- Monday, April 27, Monte Carlo simulation of 2D Ising
- Tuesday, April 28, Histogram analysis of 2D Ising model
- Wednesday, April 29, Wang-Landau simulation
- Friday, May 1, Exam review
Final Exam