Individual course details
Study programme Theoretical and experimental physics
Chosen research area (module)  
Nature and level of studies  
Name of the course Statistica Physics I
Professor (lectures) Prof. Milan Knežević
Professor/associate (examples/practical)  
Professor/associate (additional)  
ECTS 4 Status (required/elective) required
Access requirements Mathematics 4b
Aims of the course Learn the main concepts, laws and methods of phenomenological thermodynamics and stochastic processes.
Learning outcomes Students will be able to apply the acquired knowledge and methods in studies of simple equilibrium and out of equilibrium many-body systems.
Contents of the course
Lectures Fundamental concepts and laws of equilibrium phenomenological thermodynamics; applications to simple physical systems. Legendre transformations and thermodynamic potentials. Equilibrium and stability conditions; response functions. Phases and phase transitions; Ehrenfest's clasification. Critical phenomena, critical exponents, scaling hypothesis. Mean-field theory. Landau theory. Random walks on lattices; diffusion equation. Langevin theory of Brownian motion.  General stochastic processes. Markov processes; Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. Diffusive Markov processes; Fokker-Planck equation. Gaussian processes. Wiener-Hinchin theorem. Discrete Markovian processes; Master equations.
Examples/ practical classes  
Recommended books
1 H. Callen, Thermodynamics and introduction to thermostatistics 2nd ed. John Wiley (1985)
2 S. Milošević, Osnovi fenomenološke termodinamike, PFV (1979)
3 R. Kubo, Thermodynamics, North-Holland (1968)
4 N.G. Van Kampen, Stochastic processes in physics and chemistry, 3rd ed. Elsevier (2007)
5 P.A. Martin, Physique statistique des processus irreversibles, ENS Lyon (2004)
Number of classes (weekly)
Lectures Examples&practicals   Student project Additional
2 2      
Teaching and learning methods Lectures, example exercises, consultations, homework assignments
Assessment (maximal 100)
assesed coursework mark examination mark
coursework   written examination 30
practicals 10 oral examination 50
papers 10    
presentations