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# Posts Tagged ‘high temperature limit’

## An updated compilation of notes, for ‘PHY452H1S Basic Statistical Mechanics’, Taught by Prof. Arun Paramekanti

Posted by peeterjoot on March 27, 2013

Here’s my second update of my notes compilation for this course, including all of the following:

March 27, 2013 Fermi gas

March 26, 2013 Fermi gas thermodynamics

March 26, 2013 Fermi gas thermodynamics

March 23, 2013 Relativisitic generalization of statistical mechanics

March 21, 2013 Kittel Zipper problem

March 18, 2013 Pathria chapter 4 diatomic molecule problem

March 17, 2013 Gibbs sum for a two level system

March 16, 2013 open system variance of N

March 16, 2013 probability forms of entropy

March 14, 2013 Grand Canonical/Fermion-Bosons

March 13, 2013 Quantum anharmonic oscillator

March 12, 2013 Grand canonical ensemble

March 11, 2013 Heat capacity of perturbed harmonic oscillator

March 10, 2013 Langevin small approximation

March 10, 2013 Addition of two one half spins

March 10, 2013 Midterm II reflection

March 07, 2013 Thermodynamic identities

March 06, 2013 Temperature

March 05, 2013 Interacting spin

plus everything detailed in the description of my first update and before.

## PHY452H1S Basic Statistical Mechanics. Lecture 16: Fermi gas. Taught by Prof. Arun Paramekanti

Posted by peeterjoot on March 27, 2013

[Click here for a PDF of this post with nicer formatting (especially if my latex to wordpress script has left FORMULA DOES NOT PARSE errors.)]

# Disclaimer

Peeter’s lecture notes from class. May not be entirely coherent.

# Fermi gas

Review

Continuing a discussion of [1] section 8.1 content.

We found

\begin{aligned}n_{\mathbf{k}} = \frac{1}{{e^{\beta(\epsilon_k - \mu)} + 1}}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.1)

With no spin

\begin{aligned}\int n_\mathbf{k} \times \frac{d^3 k}{(2\pi)^3} = \rho\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.2)

Fig 1.1: Occupancy at low temperature limit

Fig 1.2: Volume integral over momentum up to Fermi energy limit

\begin{aligned}\epsilon_{\mathrm{F}} = \frac{\hbar^2 k_{\mathrm{F}}^2}{2m}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.3)

gives

\begin{aligned}k_{\mathrm{F}} = (6 \pi^2 \rho)^{1/3}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.4)

\begin{aligned}\sum_\mathbf{k} n_\mathbf{k} = N\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.5)

\begin{aligned}\mathbf{k} = \frac{2\pi}{L}(n_x, n_y, n_z)\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.6)

This is for periodic boundary conditions \footnote{I filled in details in the last lecture using a particle in a box, whereas this periodic condition was intended. We see that both achieve the same result}, where

\begin{aligned}\Psi(x + L) = \Psi(x)\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.7)

Moving on

\begin{aligned}\sum_{k_x} n(\mathbf{k}) = \sum_{p_x} \Delta p_x n(\mathbf{k})\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.8)

with

\begin{aligned}\Delta k_x = \frac{2 \pi}{L} \Delta p_x\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.9)

this gives

\begin{aligned}\sum_{k_x} n(\mathbf{k}) = \sum_{n_x} \frac{L}{2\pi} \Delta k_x \rightarrow \frac{L}{2\pi} \int d k_x\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.10)

Over all dimensions

\begin{aligned}\sum_{\mathbf{k}} n_\mathbf{k} = \left( \frac{L}{2\pi} \right)^3 \left( \int d^3 \mathbf{k} \right)n(\mathbf{k})=N\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.11)

so that

\begin{aligned}\rho = \int \frac{d^3 \mathbf{k}}{(2 \pi)^3}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.12)

Again

\begin{aligned}k_{\mathrm{F}} = (6 \pi^2 \rho)^{1/3}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.13)

## Example: Spin considerations

{example:basicStatMechLecture16:1}{

\begin{aligned}\sum_{\mathbf{k}, m_s} = N\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.14)

\begin{aligned}\sum_{\mathbf{k}, m_s} \frac{1}{{e^{\beta(\epsilon_k - \mu)} + 1}} = (2 S + 1)\left( \int \frac{d^3 \mathbf{k}}{(2 \pi)^3} n(\mathbf{k}) \right)L^3\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.15)

This gives us

\begin{aligned}k_{\mathrm{F}} = \left( \frac{ 6 \pi^2 \rho }{2 S + 1} \right)^{1/3}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.16)

and again

\begin{aligned}\epsilon_{\mathrm{F}} = \frac{\hbar^2 k_{\mathrm{F}}^2}{2m}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.17)

}

High Temperatures

Now we want to look at the at higher temperature range, where the occupancy may look like fig. 1.3

Fig 1.3: Occupancy at higher temperatures

\begin{aligned}\mu(T = 0) = \epsilon_{\mathrm{F}}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.18)

\begin{aligned}\mu(T \rightarrow \infty) \rightarrow - \infty\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.19)

so that for large $T$ we have

\begin{aligned}\frac{1}{{e^{\beta(\epsilon_k - \mu)} + 1}} \rightarrow e^{-\beta(\epsilon_k - \mu)}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.20)

\begin{aligned}\rho &= \int \frac{d^3 \mathbf{k}}{(2 \pi)^3} e^{\beta \mu} e^{-\beta \epsilon_k} \\ &= e^{\beta \mu} \int \frac{d^3 \mathbf{k}}{(2 \pi)^3} e^{-\beta \epsilon_k} \\ &= e^{\beta \mu} \int dk \frac{4 \pi k^2}{(2 \pi)^3} e^{-\beta \hbar^2 k^2/2m}.\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.21)

Mathematica (or integration by parts) tells us that

\begin{aligned}\frac{1}{{(2 \pi)^3}} \int 4 \pi^2 k^2 dk e^{-a k^2} = \frac{1}{{(4 \pi a )^{3/2}}},\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.22)

so we have

\begin{aligned}\rho &= e^{\beta \mu} \left( \frac{2m}{ 4 \pi \beta \hbar^2} \right)^{3/2} \\ &= e^{\beta \mu} \left( \frac{2 m k_{\mathrm{B}} T 4 \pi^2 }{ 4 \pi h^2} \right)^{3/2} \\ &= e^{\beta \mu} \left( \frac{2 m k_{\mathrm{B}} T \pi }{ h^2} \right)^{3/2}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.23)

Introducing $\lambda$ for the thermal de Broglie wavelength, $\lambda^3 \sim T^{-3/2}$

\begin{aligned}\lambda \equiv \frac{h}{\sqrt{2 \pi m k_{\mathrm{B}} T}},\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.24)

we have

\begin{aligned}\rho = e^{\beta \mu} \frac{1}{{\lambda^3}}.\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.25)

Does it make any sense to have density as a function of temperature? An inappropriately extended to low temperatures plot of the density is found in fig. 1.4 for a few arbitrarily chosen numerical values of the chemical potential $\mu$, where we see that it drops to zero with temperature. I suppose that makes sense if we are not holding volume constant.

Fig 1.4: Density as a function of temperature

We can write

\begin{aligned}\boxed{e^{\beta \mu} = \left( \rho \lambda^3 \right)}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.26)

\begin{aligned}\frac{\mu}{k_{\mathrm{B}} T} = \ln \left( \rho \lambda^3 \right)\sim -\frac{3}{2} \ln T\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.27)

or (taking $\rho$ (and/or volume?) as a constant) we have for large temperatures

\begin{aligned}\mu \propto -T \ln T\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.28)

The chemical potential is plotted in fig. 1.5, whereas this $- k_{\mathrm{B}} T \ln k_{\mathrm{B}} T$ function is plotted in fig. 1.6. The contributions to $\mu$ from the $k_{\mathrm{B}} T \ln (\rho h^3 (2 \pi m)^{-3/2})$ term are dropped for the high temperature approximation.

Fig 1.5: Chemical potential over degenerate to classical range

Fig 1.6: High temp approximation of chemical potential, extended back to T = 0

Pressure

\begin{aligned}P = - \frac{\partial {E}}{\partial {V}}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.29)

For a classical ideal gas as in fig. 1.7 we have

Fig 1.7: Ideal gas pressure vs volume

\begin{aligned}P = \rho k_{\mathrm{B}} T\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.30)

For a Fermi gas at $T = 0$ we have

\begin{aligned}E &= \sum_\mathbf{k} \epsilon_k n_k \\ &= \sum_\mathbf{k} \epsilon_k \Theta(\mu_0 - \epsilon_k) \\ &= \frac{V}{(2\pi)^3} \int_{\epsilon_k < \mu_0} \frac{\hbar^2 \mathbf{k}^2}{2 m} d^3 \mathbf{k} \\ &= \frac{V}{(2\pi)^3} \int_0^{k_{\mathrm{F}}} \frac{\hbar^2 \mathbf{k}^2}{2 m} d^3 \mathbf{k} \\ &= \frac{V}{(2\pi)^3} \frac{\hbar^2}{2 m} \int_0^{k_{\mathrm{F}}} k^2 4 \pi k^2 d k\propto k_{\mathrm{F}}^5\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.31)

Specifically,

\begin{aligned}E(T = 0) = V \times \frac{3}{5} \underbrace{\epsilon_{\mathrm{F}}}_{\sim k_{\mathrm{F}}^2}\underbrace{\rho}_{\sim k_{\mathrm{F}}^3}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.32)

or

\begin{aligned}\frac{E}{N} = \frac{3}{5} \epsilon_{\mathrm{F}}\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.33)

\begin{aligned}E = \frac{3}{5} N \frac{\hbar^2}{2 m} \left( 6 \pi^2 \frac{N}{V} \right)^{2/3} = a V^{-2/3},\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.34)

so that

\begin{aligned}\frac{\partial {E}}{\partial {V}} = -\frac{2}{3} a V^{-5/3}.\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.35)

\begin{aligned}P &= -\frac{\partial {E}}{\partial {V}} \\ &= \frac{2}{3} \left( a V^{-2/3} \right)V^{-1} \\ &= \frac{2}{3} \frac{E}{V} \\ &= \frac{2}{3} \left( \frac{3}{5} \epsilon_{\mathrm{F}} \rho \right) \\ &= \frac{2}{5} \epsilon_{\mathrm{F}} \rho.\end{aligned} \hspace{\stretch{1}}(1.2.36)

We see that the pressure ends up deviating from the classical result at low temperatures, as sketched in fig. 1.8. This low temperature limit for the pressure $2 \epsilon_{\mathrm{F}} \rho/5$ is called the degeneracy pressure.

Fig 1.8: Fermi degeneracy pressure

# References

[1] RK Pathria. Statistical mechanics. Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, UK, 1996.