PHYS30151: Bose & Fermi Gases

Lecturer: Jeff Forshaw

Recommended textbooks

Lecture summaries:

Lecture 1 Lecture 12
Lecture 2 Lecture 13
Lecture 3 Lecture 14
Lecture 4 Lecture 15
Lectures 5 Lecture 16
Lecture 6 Lecture 17
Lecture 7 Lecture 18
Lecture 8 Lecture 19
Lecture 9 Lecture 20
Lecture 10 Lecture 21
Lecture 11 Lecture 22

Additional material:

Plots showing the Bose-Einstein, Fermi-Dirac and Boltzmann distribution functions.

Heat capacity data: metal (potassium), helium, diamond and some more metals.

Extra-curricular material on the physics of identical particles

Tables: Fermi temperature of various metals; masses and radii of some White Dwarf stars

The derivation of the chemical potential and internal energy of a Fermi gas at low T

Plot to illustrate how to chemical potential of a Bose gas increases as T decreases.

Snapshots of a Bose-Einstein Condensate and a movie. (The movie is taken from www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/ which provides a very good intro to BEC.)

Plot showing the Planck distribution for black body radiation.

The Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum and the tiny fluctuations in it.