- #1
Piano man
- 75
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I'm working through a derivation of Einstein's formula for specific heat and I'm stuck.
So far I've been working off Planck's assumption of quantised energy [tex] E=n\hbar\omega [/tex] and the energy probability [tex] P(E)= e^{\frac{-E}{k_b T}} [/tex], using the fact that the mean expectation energy is [tex]\langle E \rangle= \frac{\sum_n E P(E)}{\sum_n P(E)}[/tex] to get total energy [tex]U=3N\langle E \rangle=\frac{3N\sum_n n\hbar\omega e^{-n\hbar\omega/k_b T}}{\sum_n e^{-n\hbar\omega/k_b T}}[/tex]
The next step is where my problem is. The derivation I am studying says the above expression is equal to [tex]3Nk_b T\left[\frac{\hbar\omega/k_b T}{e^{\hbar\omega/k_bT}-1}\right][/tex], which when differentiated wrt T gives the Einstein formula, but I don't see how that step is made.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
So far I've been working off Planck's assumption of quantised energy [tex] E=n\hbar\omega [/tex] and the energy probability [tex] P(E)= e^{\frac{-E}{k_b T}} [/tex], using the fact that the mean expectation energy is [tex]\langle E \rangle= \frac{\sum_n E P(E)}{\sum_n P(E)}[/tex] to get total energy [tex]U=3N\langle E \rangle=\frac{3N\sum_n n\hbar\omega e^{-n\hbar\omega/k_b T}}{\sum_n e^{-n\hbar\omega/k_b T}}[/tex]
The next step is where my problem is. The derivation I am studying says the above expression is equal to [tex]3Nk_b T\left[\frac{\hbar\omega/k_b T}{e^{\hbar\omega/k_bT}-1}\right][/tex], which when differentiated wrt T gives the Einstein formula, but I don't see how that step is made.
Any ideas?
Thanks.