Paper 3, Section I, E

Cosmology | Part II, 2012

For an ideal Fermi gas in equilibrium at temperature TT and chemical potential μ\mu, the average occupation number of the kk th energy state, with energy EkE_{k}, is

nˉk=1e(Ekμ)/kBT+1.\bar{n}_{k}=\frac{1}{e^{\left(E_{k}-\mu\right) / k_{B} T}+1} .

Discuss the limit T0T \rightarrow 0. What is the Fermi energy ϵF?\epsilon_{F} ? How is it related to the Fermi momentum pFp_{F} ? Explain why the density of states with momentum between pp and p+dpp+d p is proportional to p2dpp^{2} d p and use this fact to deduce that the fermion number density at zero temperature takes the form

npF3.n \propto p_{F}^{3} .

Consider an ideal Fermi gas that, at zero temperature, is either (i) non-relativistic or (ii) ultra-relativistic. In each case show that the fermion energy density ϵ\epsilon takes the form

ϵnγ\epsilon \propto n^{\gamma}

for some constant γ\gamma which you should compute.

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