Paper 3, Section II, E

Statistical Physics
Part II, 2014

In the grand canonical ensemble, at temperature TT and chemical potential μ\mu, what is the probability of finding a system in a state with energy EE and particle number NN ?

A particle with spin degeneracy gsg_{s} and mass mm moves in d2d \geqslant 2 spatial dimensions with dispersion relation E=2k2/2mE=\hbar^{2} k^{2} / 2 m. Compute the density of states g(E)g(E). [You may denote the area of a unit (d1)(d-1)-dimensional sphere as Sd1S_{d-1}.]

Treating the particles as non-interacting fermions, determine the energy EE of a gas in terms of the pressure PP and volume VV.

Derive an expression for the Fermi energy in terms of the number density of particles. Compute the degeneracy pressure at zero temperature in terms of the number of particles and the Fermi energy.

Show that at high temperatures the gas obeys the ideal gas law (up to small corrections which you need not compute).