Notebooks
Statistical Mechanics: Books Recommendations
Recommended reading
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Reif, F. (2009). Fundamentals of statistical and thermal physics. Waveland Press.
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I disliked this book as a student, but after teaching stat mech twice, I’ve grown to like it—my patience for slightly verbose explanations has clearly increased.
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Huang, K. (1987). Statistical mechanics (2nd ed). Wiley.
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Broad yet concise. The chapter on the general properties of the partition function has a nice discussion on the zeroes of the partition function and connections to phase transition.
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Toda, M., Kubo, R., & Saitô, N. (1992). Statistical Physics I: Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics (Vol. 30). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Kubo, R., Toda, M., & Hashitsume, N. (1991). Statistical Physics II (Vol. 31). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
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Ryogo Kubo's books are some of the most didactic books I've ever read. Strongly recommended.
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Feynman, R. (1998). Statistical Mechanics: A Set Of Lectures. Taylor & Francis.
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Good book with a spectacular beginning where he puts the partition function in the place it deserves.
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Kleinert, H., & Schulte-frohlinde, V. (2001). Critical Properties Of $\phi^4$-Theories. World Scientific.
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If you're trying to calculate higher-order Feynman diagrams for scalar field theories, Kleinert and Schulte-Frohlinde's book is the best reference.
- Kardar, M. (2007). Statistical Physics of Fields (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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My favorite book regarding field-theoretic formulation of critical phenomena. The chapters on the perturbative renormalization group of $\phi^4$ theories are superb.
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Nishimori, H., & Ortiz, G. (2011). Elements of phase transitions and critical phenomena. Oxford University Press.
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It has a neat discussion on mean field theories (particularly $\phi^6$ theory related to tricritical points).
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Swendsen, R. H. (2019). An Introduction to Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
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A thorough book and—unusually—starts with detailed discussions on entropy. The book uses slightly unwieldy, verbose notations, but I think explicit notations is a feature here, not a problem.
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Baxter, R. J. (2008). Exactly Solved Models in Statistical Mechanics. Dover Publications.
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The best resource for exactly solvable models.
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Allen, M. P., & Tildesley, D. J. (2017). Computer simulation of liquids (Second edition). Oxford University Press.
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Clean, accessible discussions on numerical approaches in statistical mechanics. For instance, check the discussion on how ensembles are used in molecular dynamics simulations.
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Chandler, D. (1987). Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics. OUP USA.
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Concise, but so well-written! Check, for example, the first chapter on thermodynamics (and especially Legendre transforms).
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Tolman, R. C. (1979). The principles of statistical mechanics. Dover Publications.
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I've only had a look at this book, but I'm thoroughly impressed by its depth.
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Dalvit, D. A. R., Frastai, J., & Lawrie, I. D. (1999). Problems on statistical mechanics. Institute of Physics.
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Excellent book on problems, more so because it comes with solutions. Check it if you want to know, for example, under which conditions bosons with a $p^s$ dispersion relation in $d$-dimensions will form a condensate.
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Krapivsky, P. L., Redner, S., & Ben-Naim, E. (2010). A Kinetic View of Statistical Physics (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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The chapters on aggregation, fragmentation, and adsorption are particularly good.
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Balakrishnan, V. (2021). Elements of Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics. Springer International Publishing.
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Thorough, excellent treatment of non-equilibrium stat mech.
To read
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Ambegaokar, V. (1996). Reasoning about luck: Probability and its uses in physics. Cambridge University Press. (Archive)