Paper 3, Section II, D

Statistical Physics
Part II, 2019

What is meant by the chemical potential μ\mu of a thermodynamic system? Derive the Gibbs distribution for a system at temperature TT and chemical potential μ\mu (and fixed volume) with variable particle number NN.

Consider a non-interacting, two-dimensional gas of NN fermionic particles in a region of fixed area, at temperature TT and chemical potential μ\mu. Using the Gibbs distribution, find the mean occupation number nF(ε)n_{F}(\varepsilon) of a one-particle quantum state of energy ε\varepsilon. Show that the density of states g(ε)g(\varepsilon) is independent of ε\varepsilon and deduce that the mean number of particles between energies ε\varepsilon and ε+dε\varepsilon+d \varepsilon is very well approximated for TεFT \ll \varepsilon_{F} by

NεFdεe(εεF)/T+1\frac{N}{\varepsilon_{F}} \frac{d \varepsilon}{e^{\left(\varepsilon-\varepsilon_{F}\right) / T+1}}

where εF\varepsilon_{F} is the Fermi energy. Show that, for TT small, the heat capacity of the gas has a power-law dependence on TT, and find the power.