Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics 3
During the spring semester of 2021, I had the opportunity to work as a teaching assistant for Prof. Ali Rezakhani’s graduate course in statistical mechanics. I am excited to share the problem sets that I published during that time. They may be useful as a study resource for students interested in the subject. Please keep in mind that the course content and material may have been updated since then.
| Problem Set No. | File | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Set 1 | Classical Thermodynamics: Entropy of Mixing, Photon Gas Carnot Cycle, Maximum Entropy Principle; Ensemble Theory: Classical Harmonic Oscillator, Quantum Harmonic Oscillator, Curie Susceptibility, Equipartition, Helmholtz Extensiveness. | |
| Set 2 | Density Operator: The Schmidt Decomposition, Thermal Radiation, Equivalence of Entropies, Spin 1/2 Particle | |
| Set 3 | Stochastic Processes: Rabbit Evolution, Knight’s Tour, Colored Balls, Transition Matrix, Random Walk, Birth and Death Processes, LGKS Equation | |
| Set 4 | Stochastic Processes: Fokker-Planck Equation, Random Walk and Diffusion Equation, Kramers-Moyal Equation, Backward Kramers-Moyal Equation, Pawula Theorem; Kinetic Theory: One-Dimensional Gas, Evolution of Entropy, Vlasov Equation, Two-Component Plasma | |
| Set 5 | Stochastic Processes: Generalized Langevin Equation; The Partition Function: Boltzmann Distribution, Ideal Bose Gas, The Lee-Yang Theorem in Electrostatics, Grand Partition Function |