Stony Brook University Department of Physics and Astronomy

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Stat. Mech.

placement exam Fall 2005

STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY


DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
Placement Examination Statistical Mechanics, August 25, 2005
General instructions: Three problems are given. You should do any two. Each problem
counts 20 points and the solution should typically take less than 45 minutes. Use one
exam book for each problem and label it carefully with your name, the name of the
problem's author and the date. You may use a one page help sheet, a calculator, and with
the proctors approval a foreign language dictionary. No other materials may be used.

Statistical Mechanics I (Verbaarschot)


a) (5 points) What is an order parameter?
b) (5 points) Suppose that the potential for the order parameter is given by
V ( ) = a (T TC ) n + b n + 2 . For what values of a, b and n does this potential
describe a second order phase transition? (Consider only positive n.)
c) (5 points) For T TC the order parameter behaves as ~ (T TC ) . Calculate .
d) (5 points) Now add the term g to the potential. How does the order parameter
behave as a function of g for T TC ?
Statistical Mechanics II (Prakash)
Consider a 3 dimensional system of N noninteracting spin 1/2 fermions of mass m and
energy p = p 2 /( 2m) ( p denotes the momentum and p is its magnitude) contained
within a volume V . In equilibrium, the average occupation probability of a state with
momentum p is given by the Fermi-Dirac distribution

n = f ( p ) =
1 + exp

p
kT

Above, is the chemical potential, T is the temperature, and k is the Boltzmanns


constant.
a) (5 points) At T = 0, determine the relation between the number N =

n p and

the Fermi energy F (this is the energy of the largest momentum state pF ).

Stat. Mech. placement exam Fall 2005

For temperatures satisfying kT/ << 1, show that


b) (5 points) The chemical potential obeys the relation

F 1

2 kT
+ ....
12 F

by considering leading order corrections due to the effects of temperature, and


c) (10 points) To leading order in T, the mean energy U = p p n p is given by
3
5 2 kT
U N F 1 +
+ ... .
5
12 F

Hints:

1. Use the replacement

d3p
.
(2 ) 3

V
3

2. Employ Sommerfelds expansion

d X ( ) f ( ) d X ( ) +
0

2
6

(kT ) 2

dX
d

+ .....
=

Statistical Mechanics III (Averin)

A large number N >>1 of non-interacting bosons are confined to move in a onedimensional quadratic potential producing harmonic oscillations of frequency for each
particle. The system is in equilibrium at temperature kT >> .
a) (10 points) Treating the system in the grand canonical ensemble, write down the
equation for the chemical potential of this gas of bosons. Calculate from this
equation replacing the sum over the oscillator states with an integral.
b) (5 points) From part (a), find the average occupation n0 of the ground state of the
oscillator and estimate the temperature range at which the gas of boson behaves as
classical ideal gas.
c) (5 points) Compare the average occupations n0 and n1 of the ground and the first
excited states and estimate the temperature at which n0 becomes considerably
larger than n1.

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