Statistical Physics Of Crystals And Liquids: A Guide To Highly Accurate Equations Of State A Guide to Highly Accurate Equations of State

This important book presents a unified formulation from first principles of the Hamiltonian and statistical mechanics of metallic and insulating crystals, amorphous solids, and liquids. Extensive comparison of theory and experiment provides an accurate understanding of the statistical properties of phonons, electrons, and phonon - phonon and electron - phonon interactions in elemental crystals and liquids. Questions are posed along the following lines: What is the "best" theory for a given property? How accurate is a good theory? What information is gained by a comparison of theory and experiment? How accurate is a good experiment? This work seeks to present a unified formulation from first principles of the Hamiltonian and statistical mechanics of metallic and insulating crystals, amorphous solids, and liquids. Extensive comparison of theory and experiment provides an understanding of the statistical properties of phonons, electrons, and phonon-phonon and electron-phonon interactions in elemental crystals and liquids. Questions are posed along the following lines: what is the ''best'' theory for a given property? How accurate is a good theory? What information is gained by a comparison of theory and experiment? How accurate is a good experiment? Wallace (Los Alamos National Laboratory) constructs the complete Hamiltonian for crystals, amorphous solid, and liquid elements, representing the ground-state energy with static nuclei, the motion of nuclei, excitation of electrons from their ground-state, and interaction between nuclear motion and electronic excitation. He then presents liquid dynamics theory based on this Hamiltonian and compares the theory and experiment over a range of properties for crystals and liquids. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR This work presents a formulation from first principles of the Hamiltonian and statistical mechanics of metallic and insulating crystals, amorphous solids, and liquids. It examines the statistical properties of phonons, electrons, and phonon-phonon and electron-phonon interactions. Ultimately our goal is to understand, at the highest level of accuracy possible, the binding and the excitations of condensed matter systems. Duane C. Wallace. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 297-302) And Index.