Equilibrium Statistical Physics (2nd Edition)

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World Scientific Publishing Company, Dec 14, 1994 - Science - 536 pages
Newer Edition Available: Equilibrium Statistical Physics (3rd Edition)This revised and expanded edition of one of the important textbook in statistical physics, is a graduate level text suitable for students in physics, chemistry, and materials science.After a short review of basic concepts, the authors begin the discussion on strongly interacting condensed matter systems with a thorough treatment of mean field and Landau theories of phase transitions. Many examples are worked out in considerable detail. Classical liquids are treated next. Along with traditional approaches to the subject such as the virial expansion and integral equations, newer theories such as perturbation theory and density functional theories are introduced.The modern theory of phase transitions occupies a central place in this book. The development is along historical lines, beginning with the Onsager solution of the two-dimensional Ising model, series expansions, scaling theory, finite-size scaling, and the universality hypothesis. A separate chapter is devoted to the renormalization group approach to critical phenomena. The development of the basic tools is completed in a new chapter on computer simulations in which both Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics techniques are introduced.The remainder of the book is concerned with a discussion of some of the more important modern problems in condensed matter theory. A chapter on quantum fluids deals with Bose condensation, superfluidity, and the BCS and Landau-Ginzburg theories of superconductivity. A new chapter on polymers and membranes contains a discussion of the Gaussian and Flory models of dilute polymer mixtures, the connection of polymer theory to critical phenomena, a discussion of dense polymer mixtures and an introduction to the physical properties of solid and fluid membranes. A chapter on linear response includes the Kubo formalism, the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, Onsager relations and the Boltzmann equation. The last chapter is devoted to disordered materials.Each chapter contains a substantial number of exercises. A manual with a complete set of solutions to these problems is available under separate cover.
 

Contents

Chapter 1 Review of Thermodynamics
1
Chapter 2 Statistical Ensembles
29
Chapter 3 Mean Field and Landau Theory
61
Chapter 4 Dense Gases and Liquids
123
Chapter 5 Critical Phenomena I
163
The Renormalization Group
217
Chapter 7 Simulations
271
Chapter 8 Polymers and Membranes
301
Chapter 9 Quantum Fluids
339
Chapter 10 Linear Response Theory
377
Chapter 11Disordered Systems
429
Appendix Occupation number represent at ion
481
Bibliography
495
Index
511
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About the author (1994)

Michael Plischke (Simon Fraser University);Birger Bergersen (University of British Columbia)

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