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Assignment 4

This document provides an assignment on statistical mechanics with 5 questions. Question 1 involves ideal quantum gases and Bose-Einstein condensation. Question 2 focuses on two-dimensional ideal gases and specific heat. Question 3 covers harmonic crystals, mean square displacement, and Debye theory. Question 4 is about Bose-Einstein condensation in different potentials. Question 5 examines a gas of non-interacting ultra-relativistic electrons. The assignment requires calculating various thermodynamic quantities and properties for different systems.

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33 views

Assignment 4

This document provides an assignment on statistical mechanics with 5 questions. Question 1 involves ideal quantum gases and Bose-Einstein condensation. Question 2 focuses on two-dimensional ideal gases and specific heat. Question 3 covers harmonic crystals, mean square displacement, and Debye theory. Question 4 is about Bose-Einstein condensation in different potentials. Question 5 examines a gas of non-interacting ultra-relativistic electrons. The assignment requires calculating various thermodynamic quantities and properties for different systems.

Uploaded by

dos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Statistical Mechanics

ASSIGNMENT NO. 4
Due: November 5, 2018
All questions carry 15 marks

1. Ideal quantum gases

(a) Show that the pressure, energy and particle density for an ideal gas is
given, in d-dimensions, by
p 2U 1
= = d fd/2+1 (z) (1)
kB T dV kB T λ
1
n = fd/2 (z) , (2)
λd
for fermions and by
p 2U 1
= = d gd/2+1 (z) (3)
kB T dV kB T λ
1
n = gd/2 (z) , (4)
λd
for bosons. The functions fν (z) and gν (z) are the ones defined in class.
(b) For bosons, show that in dimensions d > 2 we get BE condensation and
we need to add an extra term in the equation for n.
(c) Show that in the BE condensation phase, it is alright to neglect the
occupancy of other low energy states and only consider the ground state
occupancy.

2. Two-dimensional ideal gases.

(a) In d = 2 evaluate numerically the specific heat of the ideal Fermi and
Bose gases. Plot these together as functions of temperature. Consider
the density of the gases to be fixed at n = 1020 m−2 .
Hints: (i) Starting from the expressions for energy given in Eqs. (1,3),
find an expression for the specific heat per particle (c). (ii) Evaluate the
dependence of T on z from Eqs. (2,4). Use this to evaluate the specific
heat expression at different values of z and the corresponding T . (iii) In
numerical integrations we should try avoiding use of large numbers such
as 1020 and 10−34 . Hence use dimensionless variables c/kB and T /TF
where kB TF = EF and EF is the usual fermi energy for the 2D electron
gas. Obtain your plot for (T /TF ) between 0 and 2.
(b) Are you surprised with the plots ? Try to find an analytic explanation of
the results ?

1
3. Harmonic crystals.

(a) Show that the low-temperature specific heat of a harmonic crsytal has
the scaling C ∼ T d in d-dimensions.
(b) Using the results of Debye theory (where you assume linear phonon dis-
persion) estimate the Debye temperature. Calculate the phonon specific
heat of silver at T = 10 K and T = 300 K. Compare with the experi-
mentally measured value of C = 1.7 J/(Kg.K) and C = 235 J/(Kg.K)
at these two temperatures. [Take sound speed in silver as 3000 m/s and
density 10.5 gm/cm3 .]
(c) As shown in the class, the mean square displacement of an atom in a one-
dimensional harmonic crystal diverges linearly with system size. Obtain
the mean square displacement for two and three dimensional crystals and
show that there is a divergence in the two-dimensional case also, and no
divergence in the three-dimensional case.
Hint: Assume that the d (for d-dimensional case) positional degrees of
freedom at each lattice site decouple so that we can consider the following
effective Hamiltonian for each degree of freedom.
d
p2R
" #
kX
(xR − xR+aes )2
X
H= + , (5)
R 2m 2 s=1

where R denotes the lattice points of a cubic lattice (square in 2D), a is


the lattice constant and es with s = 1, 2, ...d denotes d orthonormal unit
vectors. For this model obtain the expression for hx2R i and analyze it.
q
(d) Use your result to obtain a crude estimate of hx2R i/a at T = 300 K for
a sample of suspended graphene sheet that has dimensions 10 µ ×10 µ.
Assume a = 2Ao and speed of sound in graphene c = 20 × 103 m/sec.

4. Bose-Einstein Condensation

(a) Consider an ideal gas of bosons whose density of states is given by g(E) =
CE α−1 for some constants C and α > 1. Derive an expression for the
critical temperature Tc below which the gas experiences Bose-Einstein
condensation.
(b) Derive Tc for bosons in a three dimensional quadratic potential:

Here d is the number of dimensions. Show that bosons in a two dimen-


sional trap will condense at suitably low temperatures. In each case, cal-
culate the number of particles in the condensate as a function of T < Tc
,

2
5. Consider a gas of non-interacting ultra-relativistic electrons, whose mass may
be neglected. Find an integral for the grand potential Φ. Show that 3pV=E.
Show that at zero temperature pV 4/3 = constant. Show that at high temper-
atures E = 3N kB T and the equation of state coincides with that of a classical
ultra-relativistic gas.

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