Lecture Notes on the Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems

Abstract

This material complements David Chandler's Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics (Oxford University Press, 1987) in a graduate-level, one-semester course I teach in the Department of Chemistry at Duke University. Students enter this course with some knowledge of statistical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, usually acquired from undergraduate physical chemistry at the level of D. A. McQuarrie & J. D. Simon's Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach (University Science Books, 1997). These notes, which introduce students to a modern treatment of glassiness and to the replica method, build on the material and problems contained in the eight chapters of Chandler's textbook.