Physics 540:
Statistical Mechanics I

Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 am till 9:50am,
Instructor: Vladimir Korepin, Professor
Room: Harriman Hall 116
Web page: http://max2.physics.sunysb.edu/~korepin/
Office Hours: Monday 1pm-2pm & Friday 3pm-4pm on line
TA: Konstantinos Roumpedakis

Course description

The course will start with the laws of thermodynamics and brief reminder of probability theory [and convex functions].
It will include: Thermodynamic potentials. Thermal engines and refrigerators. Entropy. Maxwell demon.
Gases: van der Waals, mean-field lattice gas, Bose, Fermi and non-ideal gases [Lieb-Liniger].
Gibbs and canonical ensembles. Theory of large deviations.
Solid states: crystals and quasi-crystals.
Phase transitions and critical phenomena, second order phase transitions.
Bose condensation, super-fluidity and super-conductivity.
Thermodynamic equilibrium. Black body radiation.
Quantum and classical statistical mechanics. Renormalization group approach. Generalized entropies.
Applications to condensed matter, information theory, chemistry and astro-physics.
Models of classical statistical mechanics, including six vertex model [model of ice] .
Magnetism: non-interacting spins, ferromagnetism and paramagnetism, Ising model, XY, XXX, XXZ spin chains AKLT and VBS spin models.
Density matrix. Fractional statistics and anyons.

Tentative Syllabus

Course requirements

Only enrolled students can attend lectures. Attendance is expected. Homework assignments should be turned on time, late homework will not be accepted. There will be two midterms and a final exam. Absence at a midterm can be justified by a medical problem of a student [or a legal dependent] supported by medical papers in English (the doctor will be contacted to verify the note). Taking the final exam is a requirement.

Grading and exams

Midterm I on March 3
Midterm II on March 24
Midterm III on April 21
Final exam on May 10
The final grade is calculated from

Quizes	---	5%
Home Work	---	5%
Midterms	---	20% each
Final exam	---	30%

Main textbooks

Kerzon Huang, Statistical Mechanics, 1987
L D Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics
Teunis C Dorlas, Statistical Mechanics. Fundamentals and Model Solutions, IoP , 1999
Richard P. Feynman and Jacob Shaham, Statistical Mechanics, 1972
Michael Plischke and Birger Bergersen, Equilibrium Statistical Physics, World Scentific, 1999

#	Date	Read	Topic
1.	Tue, Jan 26	R.P. Feynman	0. Introduction. Review
2.	Thur. Jan 28	Dorlas, p 1-5	Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
3.	Tue, Feb 2	Huang, Ch 1.2	First Law of Thermodynamics
4.	Thur. Feb 4	Huang, Ch 1.3	Second Law of Thermodynamics
5.	Tue, Feb 9	Huang, Ch 1.4	Entropy
6.	Thur. Feb 11	Huang, Ch 1.6	Thermodynamic Potentials
7.	Tue, Feb 16	Huang, Ch 1.7	Third Law of Thermodynamics
8.	Fri, Sep 16	JS 3.2.2, LL 10	XXZ spin chain
9.	Thur, Feb 18	Peter Whittle	Probability Theory
10.	Tue, Feb 23	LL 13-15	Lieb-Liniger model;
11.	Thur, Feb 25	Shannon & Weaver	Information theory
	Tue, Mar 1		Prepare for the exam.
12.	Thur. Mar 3	LL 1-15	Midterm 1. (closed books, no cell phones).
13.	Tue, Mar 8		Thermodynamics and astrophysics
	Thur, Mar 10		Spin chains
14.	Tue, Mar 15	LL 17, 20, 21	Quasicrystals
15.	Thur, Mar 17	LL 21-22	Information classical and quantum.
16.	Tue, March 22	LL 23-24	no HW
17.	Thu, March 24	LL 24-25	Mid Term 2.
18.	Tue, March 29	LL 25-26, 31	Ising model
19.	Thu, March 31	LL 35-36	Entropy of a subsystem.
30.	Tue, April 5	LL 50, 52	AKLT
31.	Thu, April 7	G	VBS
32.	Tue, April 12	LL 16-49	Magnetizm in Spin Chains
33.	Thu, April 14	G 11.1-11.3; JS 6.3	Six vertex model
35.	Tue, April 19	G 11.8	Quantum Thermodynamics
38.	Thu, April 26	LL7 2-4	Mid Term 3.
39.	Tue, April 21	LL7 4-5, 7	Shannon entropy
40.	Thu, April 28	LL7 7, 11-12	Renyi entropy
41.	Tue , May 3	LL7 22	10. XY spin chains
42.	Thu, May 5	Room P-112	Solving problems in statistical mechanics.
Final	Tue, May 10	11:15AM-1:45 PM	FINAL EXAM. Closed books. Notes and textbooks not allowed. 4 problems.

http://studentaffairs.stonybrook.edu/dss/