Approaching the Thermodynamic Limit of an Ideal Gas
arXiv:2510.24552 · doi:10.1119/5.0200913
Abstract
For a gas confined in a container, particle-wall interactions produce modifications to the partition function involving the average surface density of gas particles. While such correlations have a vanishing effect in the thermodynamic limit, examining them is beneficial for a sharper understanding of how the limit is attained. We contrast a classical and a quantum model of particle-wall correlations within the canonical ensemble.
7 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the American Journal of Physics