Canonical ensembles classical

The grand canonical ensemble is a set of systems each with the same volume V, the same temperature T and the same chemical potential p (or if there is more than one substance present, the same set of p. s). This corresponds to a set of systems separated by diathennic and penneable walls and allowed to equilibrate. In classical thennodynamics, the appropriate fimction for fixed p, V, and Tis the productpV(see equation (A2.1.3 7)1 and statistical mechanics relates pV directly to the grand canonical partition function... 

This is the same as that in the canonical ensemble. All the thennodynamic results for a classical ideal gas tlien follow, as in section A2.2.4.4. In particular, since from equation (A2.2.158) the chemical potential is related to which was obtained m equation (A2.2.88). one obtains... 

The correlation functions provide an alternate route to the equilibrium properties of classical fluids. In particular, the two-particle correlation fimction of a system with a pairwise additive potential detemrines all of its themiodynamic properties. It also detemrines the compressibility of systems witir even more complex tliree-body and higher-order interactions. The pair correlation fiinctions are easier to approximate than the PFs to which they are related they can also be obtained, in principle, from x-ray or neutron diffraction experiments. This provides a useful perspective of fluid stmcture, and enables Hamiltonian models and approximations for the equilibrium stmcture of fluids and solutions to be tested by direct comparison with the experimentally detennined correlation fiinctions. We discuss the basic relations for the correlation fiinctions in the canonical and grand canonical ensembles before considering applications to model systems. 

No system is exactly unifomi even a crystal lattice will have fluctuations in density, and even the Ising model must pemiit fluctuations in the configuration of spins around a given spin. Moreover, even the classical treatment allows for fluctuations the statistical mechanics of the grand canonical ensemble yields an exact relation between the isothemial compressibility K j,and the number of molecules Ain volume V ... 

M. Schoen. Taylor-expansion Monte Carlo simulations of classical fluids in the canonical and grand canonical ensembles. J Comput Phys 775 159-171, 1995. 

Here Tq are coordinates in a reference volume Vq and r = potential energy of Ar crystals has been computed [288] as well as lattice constants, thermal expansion coefficients, and isotope effects in other Lennard-Jones solids. In Fig. 4 we show the kinetic and potential energy of an Ar crystal in the canonical ensemble versus temperature for different values of P we note that in the classical hmit (P = 1) the low temperature specific heat does not decrease to zero however, with increasing P values the quantum limit is approached. In Fig. 5 the isotope effect on the lattice constant (at / = 0) in a Lennard-Jones system with parameters suitable for Ne atoms is presented, and a comparison with experimental data is made. Please note that in a classical system no isotope effect can be observed, x "" and the deviations between simulations and experiments are mainly caused by non-optimized potential parameters. 

There is considerable interest in the use of discretized path-integral simulations to calculate free energy differences or potentials of mean force using quantum statistical mechanics for many-body systems [140], The reader has already become familiar with this approach to simulating with classical systems in Chap. 7. The theoretical basis of such methods is the Feynmann path-integral representation [141], from which is derived the isomorphism between the equilibrium canonical ensemble of a... 

Chapters 10 and 11 cover methods that apply to systems different from those discussed so far. First, the techniques for calculating chemical potentials in the grand canonical ensemble are discussed. Even though much of this chapter is focused on phase equilibria, the reader will discover that most of the methodology introduced in Chap. 3 can be easily adapted to these systems. Next, we will provide a brief presentation of the methods devised for calculating free energies in quantum systems. Again, it will be shown that many techniques described previously for classical systems, such as PDT, FEP and TI, can be profitably applied when quantum effects are taken into account explicitly. 

In quantum statistical mechanics where a density operator replaces the classical phase density the statistics of the grand canonical ensemble becomes feasible. The problem with the classical formulation is not entirely unexpected in view of the fact that even the classical canonical ensemble that predicts equipartitioning of molecular energies, is not supported by observation. 

The canonical ensemble was developed as the appropriate description of a system in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings by free exchange of energy. Following the discussion of classical systems the density operator of the canonical ensemble is introduced axiomatically as... 

As in the classical expression (25) the quantity ip can be inferred directly as representing the statistical analogue of the Helmholtz free energy. The average behaviour of the canonical ensemble thus obeys the laws of thermodynamics. 

Limitation to ensembles that allow exchange of energy, but not of matter, with their environment is unnecessarily restrictive and unrealistic. What is required is an ensemble for which the particle numbers, Nj also appear as random variables. As pointed out before, the probability that a system has variable particle numbers N and occurs in a mechanical state (p, q) can not be interpreted as a classical phase density. In quantum statistics the situation is different. Because of second quantization the grand canonical ensemble, like the microcanonical and canonical ensembles, can be represented by means of a density operator in Hilbert space. 

To conclude our brief overview of ab initio MD, we note that the dynamics defined by Eq. (9.16) define a microcanonical ensemble. That is, trajectories defined by this Lagrangian will conserve the total energy of the system. Similar to the situation for classical MD simulations, it is often more useful to calculate trajectories associated with dynamics at a constant temperature. One common and effective way to do this is to add additional terms to the Lagrangian so that calculations can be done in the canonical ensemble (constant N, V, and T) using the Nose-Hoover thermostat introduced in Section 9.1.2. 

N-particle systems. The classical partition function Z (T) of a canonical ensemble of N molecules is given by [184] (Hirschfelder et al. 1956)... 

To proceed, we need the value of S( ) for very small . Using the classical grand canonical ensemble (40) one can show that... 

By choosing the initial conditions for an ensemble of trajectories to represent a quantum mechanical state, trajectories may be used to investigate state-specific dynamics and some of the early studies actually probed the possibility of state specificity in unimolecular decay [330]. However, an initial condition studied by many classical trajectory simulations, but not realized in any experiment is that of a micro-canonical ensemble [331] which assumes each state of the energized reactant is populated statistically with an equal probability. The classical dynamics of this ensemble is of fundamental interest, because RRKM unimolecular rate theory assumes this ensemble is maintained for the reactant [6,332] as it decomposes. As a result, RRKM theory rules-out the possibility of state-specific unimolecular decomposition. The relationship between the classical dynamics of a micro-canonical ensemble and RRKM theory is the first topic considered here. 

Classical dynamics of a micro-canonical ensemble intrinsic RRKM and non-RRKM behavior... 

The fundamental assumption of RRKM theory is that the classical motion of the reactant is sufficiently chaotic so that a micro-canonical ensemble of states is maintained as the reactant decomposes [6,324]. This assumption is often referred to as one of a rapid intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR) [12]. By making this assumption, at any time k E) is given by Eq. (62). As a result of the fixed time-independent rate constant k(E), N(t) decays exponentially, i.e.. 

A RRKM unimolecular system obeys the ergodic principle of statistical mechanics [337]. A quantity of more utility than N t), for analyzing the classical dynamics of a micro-canonical ensemble, is the lifetime distribution Pc t), which is defined by... 

If a molecule decays in a mode-specific way, the assessment of the accuracy of classical calculations is much more complicated and depends, we believe, sensitively on the initially prepared resonance state. Considering a micro-canonical ensemble certainly will not be appropriate. The initial conditions of the ensemble of trajectories should mimic the quantum mechanical distribution function of coordinates and/or momenta as closely as possible [20,385]. The gross features of the final state distributions, e.g. the peaking of the CO vibrational distribution in the dissociation of HCO close to the maximum allowed state (Fig. 36), may be qualitatively reproduced. However, more subtle structures are unlikely to be described well, because they often reflect details of the quantum wave function (reflection principle [20]). More work to explore this question is certainly needed. 

If an intrinsically-RRKM molecule with many atoms is excited non-randomly, its initial classical non-RRKM dynamics may agree with the quantum dynamics for the reasons described above. But at longer times, after a micro-canonical ensemble is created, the classical unimolecular rate constant is much larger than the quantum value, because of the zero-point energy problem. Thus, the short-time unimolecular dynamics of a large molecule will often agree quite well with experiment if the molecule is excited non-randomly. The following is a brief review of two representative... 

Until now, our formulation of statistical thermodynamics has been based on quantum mechanics. This is reflected by the definition of the canonical ensemble partition function Q, which turns out to be linked to matrix elements of the Hamiltonian operator H in Eq. (2.39). However, the systems treated below exist in a region of thermodjniamic state space where the exact quantum mechanical treatment may be abandoned in favor of a classic dc.scription. The transition from quantum to classic statistics was worked out by Kirkwood [22, 23] and Wigner [24] and is rarely discussed in standard texts on statistical physics. For the sake of completeness, self-containment, and as background information for the interested readers we summarize the key considerations in this section. 

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