Introduction to Statistical Physics, Spring 2014

Instructor: Yih-Yuh Chen

Assignment 5

The due date for this assignment is Wednesday 12:00 pm, May 28, 2014.

1. (Non-negativeness of the specific heat of all matter.)

(a) From the expression for the internal energy in canonical ensemble,
X

please show that

! !
X X X
= 2




= 2 2
P
2 to show
(b) If we write , then please expand
that 2 2 is non-negative.
(c) Why is it that the above shows that the isochoric specific heat of a system is
always positive?

2. Consider two weakly interacting systems which can exchange particles. Classical ther-
modynamics dictates that their chemical potentials satisfy 1 = 2 , with

( )
=

For a volume of ideal gas placed on the ground we will assume that its entropy is given
by a certain function : ( ). If the gas container is moved to a place
where each particle in it gains an extra potential energy , then we we expect that
= ( ). Now we consider two containers of ideal gas, one placed on the
ground and the other raised to some height above the ground. Then, = . If
the Number 2 container is at a higher place and there is a very small tube connecting
the two containers so that thermodynamic equilibrium has been reached, then we must
have
!
(1 1 1 ) ( 0 2 2 ) ( 0 2 2 )
= 0 0
1 2 =2 2 0 =2 2

assuming that the number of particles inside the tube is very small and thus can be
ignored.

1
 (a) Classical thermodynamics together with the assumption that the entropy is an
extensive quantity tells us that


= ln + ln + constant



= ln + ln + constant

Please show that
2 1
= (1)
2 1
Notice that we arrive at this result using pure classical thermodynamics.
(b) From microcanonical ensemble we expect that

32
ln
!3
Would you derive the same result of Eqn.(1) had you used this expression for ?
(c) From microcanonical ensemble we know that, for the whole system, the total
entropy is " #
X
= ln 1 (1 1 1 ) 2 (2 2 2 )
1 +2

Assuming that the sum above is dominated by the terms near 1 = 1 and
2 = 2 which maximize 1 (1 1 1 ) 2 (2 2 2 ), please show that this
leads to the familiar assertion that

1 = 2
( )
=

(d) Suppose = , with = 1 km. Please evaluate numerically the Boltzmann

factor exp ( ) for a nitrogen molecule at = 300 K.

3. If we throw a fair dice many times, then the expectation value of the number of dots
you obtain should be
X
6
1 1 1
= 1 + 2 + + 6 = 35
=1
6 6 6

(a) Suppose the expectation value is 3.0 (= 35 05) for some loaded dice, and you
wish to use the maximum entropy formalism to assign the best probabilistic
distribution { } to the dice. Please show that

= P

for some number .

2
 (b) Find the numerical value of .
(c) Suppose the expectation value is 4.0 (= 35 + 05) for another loaded dice, and
you wish to use the maximum entropy formalism to assign the best probabilistic
distribution { } to the dice. Please find the numerical value of for this dice.

4. Dr. Planckenstein once proposed that the oscillator in a blackbody wall has a quantized
energy given by
= 2 ( = 0, 1, 2,...).

(a) Does this theory reduce to the Wiens form in the high frequency limit?
(b) Does this theory reduce to the Rayleigh-Jeans form in the low frequency limit?

5. Carter Problem 15-6.

6. Carter Problem 16-6.