Ideal gas Helmholtz energy function

From SklogWiki
Revision as of 12:19, 4 August 2008 by Carl McBride (talk | contribs) (defined a couple of terms)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

From equations

QNVT=1N!(VΛ3)N

for the canonical ensemble partition function for an ideal gas, and

A=−kBTlnQNVT

for the Helmholtz energy function, one has

A=−kBT(ln1N!+NlnVΛ3)
=−kBT(−lnN!+NlnVNΛ3N)
=−kBT(−lnN!+NlnNΛ3ρ)

using Stirling's approximation

=−kBT(−NlnN+N+NlnN−NlnΛ3ρ)

one arrives at

A=NkBT(lnΛ3ρ−1)

where Λis the de Broglie thermal wavelength and kB is the Boltzmann constant.