The Thermodynamic Limit of Quantum Coulomb Systems. Part I. General Theory
Abstract
This article is the first in a series dealing with the thermodynamic properties of quantum Coulomb systems. In this first part, we consider a general real-valued function E defined on all bounded open sets of 3. Our aim is to give sufficient conditions such that E has a thermodynamic limit. This means that the limit E(n)|n|-1 exists for all `regular enough' sequence n with growing volume, |n|, and is independent of the considered sequence. The sufficient conditions presented in our work all have a clear physical interpretation. In the next paper, we show that the free energies of many different quantum Coulomb systems satisfy these assumptions, hence have a thermodynamic limit.
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