Paper 4, Section II, 33C

Statistical Physics
Part II, 2016

(a) State the first law of thermodynamics. Derive the Maxwell relation

(SV)T=(pT)V\left(\frac{\partial S}{\partial V}\right)_{T}=\left(\frac{\partial p}{\partial T}\right)_{V}

(b) Consider a thermodynamic system whose energy EE at constant temperature TT is volume independent, i.e.

(EV)T=0\left(\frac{\partial E}{\partial V}\right)_{T}=0

Show that this implies that the pressure has the form p(T,V)=Tf(V)p(T, V)=T f(V) for some function ff.

(c) For a photon gas inside a cavity of volume VV, the energy EE and pressure pp are given in terms of the energy density UU, which depends only on the temperature TT, by

E(T,V)=U(T)V,p(T,V)=13U(T)E(T, V)=U(T) V, \quad p(T, V)=\frac{1}{3} U(T)

Show that this implies U(T)=σT4U(T)=\sigma T^{4} where σ\sigma is a constant. Show that the entropy is

S=43σT3VS=\frac{4}{3} \sigma T^{3} V

and calculate the energy E(S,V)E(S, V) and free energy F(T,V)F(T, V) in terms of their respective fundamental variables.