Most of the matter in our universe is in a gaseous or plasma state. Yet, most textbooks on quantum statistics focus on examples from and applications in condensed matter systems, due to the prevalence of solids and liquids in our day-to-day lives. In an attempt to remedy that oversight, this book consciously focuses on teaching the subject matter in the context of (dilute) gases and plasmas, while aiming primarily at graduate students and young researchers in the field of quantum gases and plasmas for some of the more advanced topics. The majority of the material is based on a two-semester course held jointly by the authors over many years, and has benefited from extensive feedback provided by countless students and co-workers. The book also includes many historical remarks on the roots of quantum statistics: firstly because students appreciate and are strongly motivated by looking back at the history of a given field of research, and secondly because the spirit permeating this book has been deeply influenced by meetings and discussions with several pioneers of quantum statistics over the past few decades.

Textbook-style introduction with an emphasis on applications in quantum gases and plasmas Based on course-tested material Contains information on and references to the history of the field

Autorentext
Werner Ebeling is a professor emeritus of the Humboldt University zu Berlin, where he was chair of statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics from 1979 to 2001. He is recipient of the Leibniz medal (1977), the Onsager medal (1978) and of the Humboldt-Mutis research award (1997). He holds honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Saratov (2001), the Technical University of Moscow (2001) and of the University of Moscow (2004). Vladimir Fortov is one of Russia's leading physicists, a senior member of the Academy of Sciences - and, since mid.2013, its president - and a world expert on the topic of matter under extreme conditions. He has carried out many pioneering experiments, among others experimentally confirming the "plasma phase transitions" long predicted by eminent scientists such as Eugene Wigner, Lev Landau and Klaus von Klitzing. He was also in charge of experiments carried out aboard the MIR and ISS space stations. He has published the book Extreme S tates of Matter with Springer in 2011. Vladimir Filinov is a professor of physics and head of the research group at the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Inhalt

Preface.- Basic physics of gases and plasmas.- Elements of quantum-statistical theory.- Ideal Quantum Gases.- Density operators and other tools of quantum statistics.- Real gas quantum statistics.- Quantum Statistics of Dilute Plasmas.- Non-Ideality and Deep Bound States in Plasmas.- Non-equilibrium - Kinetic equations.- Index.