Paper 2, Section II, C
Part II, 2010
Consider a 3-dimensional gas of non-interacting particles in a box of size where the allowed momenta are . Assuming the particles have an energy , calculate the density of states as .
Treating the particles as classical explain why the partition function is
Obtain an expression for the total energy .
Why is By considering the dependence of the energies on the volume show that the pressure is given by
What are the results for the pressure for non-relativistic particles and also for relativistic particles when their mass can be neglected?
What is the thermal wavelength for non-relativistic particles? Why are the classical results correct if the thermal wavelength is much smaller than the mean particle separation?