These courses are cross-listed and are part of the Computational Physics and Computational Chemistry component of the doctoral program in Computational Sciences and Informatics. The course is also part of new PhD in Physical Sciences, the Master in Applied Physics and Engineering and of the Master in Chemistry. This server will expand as the semester progresses.

Textbooks and Course Materials

The textbook for this course is:

Statistical Mechanics by Donald McQuarrie, University Science Books, 2002

Some lecture material will be taken from:

Equilibrium Statistical Physics by Michael Plischke and Birger Bergersen, World Scientific, 2nd Ed. 1994.

Monte Carlo Methods in Statistical Physics ed. by K. Binder

Classical Dynamics by J.B. Marion.

Additional reading material:

Reif. Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics.

Feynman. Statistical Mechanics.

K. Huang. Statistical Mechanics.

Pathria. Statistical Mechanics.

Landau and Lifshitz. Statistical Physics.

S. K. Ma. Statistical Mechanics

G.F. Mazenko. Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics.

T. L. Hill. Statistical Mechanics.

W. Greiner, L.Neise & H. Stocker, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics.

Evaluation

There will be weekly sets of homework, a mid term exam and a final exam. Some short class presentations will be assigned to students along the semester. The grade for this class will be based on your overall performance and participation during the semester. A tentative weight for each component in the grading is 40% homework, 30% exams, 30% class participation.

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Estela Blaisten-Barojas, blaisten-at-gmu.edu