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Characteristic state function



The characteristic state function in statistical mechanics refers to a particular relationship between the partition function of an ensemble.

In particular, if the partition function P satisfies

P = exp( − βQ) or P = exp( + βQ)

in which Q is a thermodynamic quantity, then Q is known as the "characteristic state function" of the ensemble corresponding to "P". Beta refers to the thermodynamic beta.

Examples

  • The microcanonical ensemble satisfies \Omega(U,V,N) = e^{ \beta T S} \;\, hence, its characteristic state function is TS \;\, . This quantity roughly speaking, denotes the energy of the entropy at a particular temperature.


 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Characteristic_state_function". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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