Gravity seminar - Jeong-Hyuck Park Seminar

How many H2O molecules are needed to form water? While the precise answer is not known, it is clear that the answer should be a finite number. We carefully revisit the ideal Bose gas confined in a cubic box which is discussed in most statistical physics textbooks. We report that the isobar of the ideal gas zigzags on the temperature-volume plane provided the number of particles is `finitely' large enough. This may demonstrate for the first time how finite systems can feature mathematical singularities, realizing the notion of `Emergence'.

The talk will summarize the main results of the following papers, skipping technical details:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/13/3/033003/ (Video abstract included)
http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v81/i6/e063636 (Canonical Ensemble, Numerical work)
http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v84/i2/e023636 (Analytic proof)