Articulo
Brownian Motion in an External Field Revisited
Registro en:
issn:2153-120X
issn:2153-1196
Autor
Plastino, Ángel Luis
Rocca, Mario Carlos
Monteoliva, Diana
Hernando, Alberto
Institución
Resumen
In many interesting physical examples, the partition function is divergent, as first pointed out in 1924 by Fermi (for the hydrogen-atom case). Thus, the usual toolbox of statistical mechanics becomes unavailable, notwithstanding the well-known fact that the pertinent system may appear to be in a thermal steady state. We tackle and overcome these difficulties hereby appeal to firmly established but not too well-known mathematical recipes and obtain finite values for a typical divergent partition function, that of a Brownian particle in an external field. This allows not only for calculating thermodynamic observables of interest, but for also instantiating other kinds of statistical mechanics’ novelties. Instituto de Física La Plata