Statistical mechanical study of the energy and enthalpy distribution functions of some physical systems

• Main Authors: Chien-Hao Wei, 魏建豪
• Other Authors: San-Kiong Lai
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21914050154444687314

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 物理研究所 === 91 === In statistical mechanics the canonical ensemble theory has been widely used to study the thermodynamic properties of a physical system. Central to this kind of theory is the canonical partition function. Experience shows that an analytical evaluation of the partition function is by no means easy especially for complex systems. An alternative approach within the same theoretical framework is to start with the inverse Laplace transform of partition function. For although this approach to the statistical thermodynamics is no less simpler, the method has the salient traits of resorting to experimental data to extract useful physical quantities. In this work, we re-visit this so-called energy or enthalpy distribution theory. The main advantage in this kind of theory is that, in conjunction with the maximum entropy theory, the energy or enthalpy distribution function can be obtained by resorting only to experimental thermal data. The calculated distribution function can provide insight into the physical system under studied. We illustrate the power of the distribution theory by studying a few selected physical systems.