Statistical Mechanics: Lecture Notes and Problems (Essential Graduate Physics)

This brief (224 pp.) textbook includes not only the material traditional for one-semester graduate courses on statistical mechanics (physical statistics basics, ideal and not-so-ideal classical and quantum gases, phase transitions, and fluctuations) but also a review of thermodynamics and an introduction to physical kinetics, as well as 156 exercise problems. It is Part SM of K. Likharev’s Essential Graduate Physics series of lecture notes and problems. Besides this volume, the series also includes three other subject parts: Part CM: Classical Mechanics, Part EM: Classical Electrodynamics, Part QM: Quantum Mechanics, the common Front Matter (two prefaces, a list of notation, and the general table of contents), two appendices, and a list of references. Electronic versions of all materials of this series, with some color elements in graphics, are in open access at mirror sites http://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/egp/, https://essentialgraduatephysics.org/, and https://sites.google.com/site/likharevegp/. Detailed model solutions of the exercise problems are also available for free download from the second of these sites. About the author: Konstantin K. Likharev received the Candidate (Ph.D.) degree in Physics from Moscow State University, Russia in 1969, and the Doctor of Sciences degree from the U.S.S.R. Highest Attestation Committee in 1979. From 1969 to 1991, Dr. Likharev was a Staff Scientist at Moscow State University. In 1991 he assumed a Professorship at Stony Brook University (Distinguished Professor 2002-2017, John Toll Professor 2017-2020, Distinguished Professor Emeritus since 2020). During his research career, Dr. Likharev worked in the fields of nonlinear classical and dissipative quantum dynamics, and solid-state physics and electronics including superconductor electronics and nanoelectronics. Dr. Likharev is an author of more than 350 publications and several patents. He is a Fellow of the APS and the IEEE.