Statistical Physics
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loginThis book is essentially based on the lecture course on “Statistical Physics”, whichwas taught by the author at the physical faculty of the Ural State University in Ekater-inburg since 1992. This course was intended for all physics students, not especiallyfor those specializing in theoretical physics. In this sense the material presented herecontains the necessary minimum of knowledge of statistical physics (also often calledstatistical mechanics), which is in author’s opinion necessary for every person wish-ing to obtain a general education in the field of physics. This posed the rather difficultproblem of the choice of material and compact enough presentation. At the same timeit necessarily should contain all the basic principles of statistical physics, as well as itsmain applications to different physical problems, mainly from the field of the theoryof condensed matter. Extended version of these lectures were published in Russianin 2003. For the present English edition, some of the material was rewritten and sev-eral new sections and paragraphs were added, bringing contents more up to date andadding more discussion on some more difficult cases. Of course, the author was muchinfluenced by several classical books on statistical physics [1, 2, 3], and this influenceis obvious in many parts of the text. However, the choice of material and the form ofpresentation is essentially his own. Still, most attention is devoted to rather traditionalproblems and models of statistical physics. One of the few exceptions is an attemptto present an elementary and short introduction to the modern quantum theoreticalmethods of statistical physics at the end of the book. Also, a little bit more attentionthan usual is given to the problems of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. Someof the more special paragraphs, of more interest to future theorists, are denoted byasterisks or moved to Appendices. Of course, this book is too short to give a completepresentation of modern statistical physics. Those interested in further developmentsshould address more fundamental monographs and modern physical literature
