Item # 24698 INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL CONTAINING SOLUTIONS TO OVER 200 PROBLEMS SELECTED FROM STATISTICAL MECHANICS (SECOND EDITION) BY R.K. PATHRIAPREFACE ‘The idea of producing this manual first came from my fiend and colleague Wing-Ki Liu several years ago when I had just embarked on the task of preparing the second edition of my book on Statistical ‘Mechanics. Though the merits of this idea were clear to me right away, I somehow shirked the effort involved in pursuing it and quietly chose to let it slide by. Later on, when, soon after the appearance of the new edition, my publisher reiterated the same suggestion, I decided to consult a few people who were known users of my book to find out their reaction to this suggestion. Almost unanimously, they endorsed the idea, after which I had no choice but to go ahead and do it.The result is a manual containing solutions to some 220 problems selected from the text. ‘The usefulness of this manual to someone who teaches Statistical Mechanics from my book can be ‘manifold, First of all, there is the obvious advantage of saving time that one would otherwise spend on solving these problems oneself, Secondly, before one selects problems either for homework or for an exam, ‘one can now consult the manual to determine the level of difficulty of the various problems and make one’s, selection accordingly. Thirdly, one may even use some of these solved problems, especially the ones appearing in later chapters, as “lecture material” supplementing the text. I trust that the availability of the manual will enhance the usefulness of the text — both for the instructors and (indirectly) for the students. For the production of a camera-ready copy of the manuscript for this manual, [ am once again indebted to Mrs. Debbie Guenther whose skillful typing and careful proof-reading have gone a long way in ‘making my task a truly enjoyable one. RKP, Waterloo, Ontario, CanadaCHAPTER 1 AL. (a) We expand the quantity £n (E,) as a Taylor series in the variable (E, — E1) and get $nQ°(E,) = (nQ,(E,) + nO, (E,) (B,=E°-B) = {tnQ,(E:)+ nQ,(Ex)} + PnQ(E) , In (E) | og { ays econo ae 2| ae oe aE, ‘The first term of this expansion is a constant, the second term vanishes as a result of equilibrium (8, = By), jpeeee e Gye eck while the third term may be written as 1 I ue OE, le ne with 7, = T,. Ignoring the subsequent terms (which is justified if the systems involved are large) and taking the exponentials, we readily see that the function °(E,) is a Gaussian in the variable (E,— 21), with variance KT(C,),(Cy), 1{(Cy), +(Cy),}- Note that if (C,), >> (Cy), — corresponding to system 1 being in thermal contact with a very large reservoir — then the variance becomes simply kT*(C,),. regardless of the nature of the reservoir; cf. eqn, (3.6.3). (©) If the systems involved are ideal classical gases, then (Cy), = 3M and (Cy), = SMk: the variance then becomes ser N,N, /(N,+N,). Again, if N, >>N,, we obtain the simplified expression BNET et, Problem 3.18. 12. Since $ is additive and © multiplicative, the function f(Q) must satisfy the condition F(QQz) = FQ,)+ (Az) - @ Differentiating (1) with respect to Q, (and with respect to Q.,), we get 2, f'(O,2,)= f'Q,) and Q,f'(2,2,)= FQ), so that Qf) =2,f(2,) Q