Problems on Non-Equilibrium Statistical Physics

Abstract

Four problems in non-equilibrium statistical physics are investigated: 1. The thermodynamics of single-photon gas; 2. Energy of the ground state in Multi-electron atoms; 3. Energy state of the H2 molecule; and 4. The Condensation behavior in N weakly interacting Boson gas. In the single-photon heat engine, we have derived the equation of state similar to that in classical ideal gas and applied it to construct the Carnot cycle with a single photon, and showed the Carnot efficiency in this single-photon heat engine. The energies of the ground state of multi-electron atoms are calculated using the modi ed Bohr model with a shell structure of the bound electrons. The di erential Schrodinger equation is simpli ed into the minimization problem of a simple energy functional, similar to the problem in dimensional scaling in the H-atom. For the C-atom, we got the ground state energy -37:82 eV with a relative error less than 6 %. The simplest molecular ion, H+ 2 , has been investigated by the quasi-classical method and two-center molecular orbit. Using the two-center molecular orbit derived from the exact treatment of the H+ 2 molecular ion problem, we can reduce the number of terms in wavefunction to get the binding energy of the H2 molecule, without using the conventional wavefunction with over-thousand terms. We get the binding energy for the H2 with Hylleraas correlation factor 1 + kr12 as 4:7eV, which is comparable to the experimental value of 4:74 eV. Condensation in the ground state of a weakly interacting Bose gas in equilibrium is investigated using a partial partition function in canonical ensemble. The recursive relation for the partition function developed for an ideal gas has been modi ed to be applicable in the interacting case, and the statistics of the occupation number in condensate states was examined. The well-known behavior of the Bose-Einstein Condensate for a weakly interacting Bose Gas are shown: Depletion of the condensate state, even at zero temperature, and a maximum uctuation near transition temperature. Furthermore, the use of the partition function in canonical ensemble leads to the smooth cross-over between low temperatures and higher temperatures, which has enlarged the applicable range of the Bogoliubov transformation. During the calculation, we also developed the formula to calculate the correlations among the excited states.