Homogeneous Many-Body Systems

In this chapter, we shall deal with systems whose number of particles N is of the order of the Avogadro number. In these systems, i.e. quantum fluids and nuclear Nuclearmattermatter, the volume component is weakly coupled to the surface, in the case of particles interacting via a short-range force. This justifies the extrapolation to an infinite system of particles through the thermodynamic limit, i.e. a system with N particles, \(N\rightarrow \infty \) , in a volume V, \(V\rightarrow \infty \) such that the density \(\rho = \dfrac{N}{V}\) is finite. We shall adopt the methods of quantum statistical mechanics with the purpose of establishing a connection with the laws of thermodynamics.