Statistical ensembles and density of states

Abstract

We propose a definition of microcanonical and canonical statistical ensembles based on the concept of density of states. This definition applies both to the classical and the quantum case. For the microcanonical case this allows for a definition of a temperature and its fluctuation, which might be useful in the theory of mesoscopic systems. In the quantum case the concept of density of states applies to one-particle Schroedinger operators, in particular to operators with a periodic potential or to random Anderson type models. In the case of periodic potentials we show that for the resulting $n$-particle system the density of states is $[(n-1)/2]$ times differentiable, such that like for classical microcanonical ensembles a (positive) temperature may be defined whenever $n\geq 5$. We expect that a similar result should also hold for Anderson type models. We also provide the first terms in asymptotic expansions of thermodynamic quantities at large energies for the microcanonical ensemble and at large temperatures for the canonical ensemble. A comparison shows that then both formulations asymptotically give the same results.