Statistical Thermodynamics of Clustered Populations

We present a completely new approach to the problem of interacting fluids, which we believe may provide important insights into microscopic mechanisms that lead to the occurrence of phase transitions. The approach exploits enumerative properties and combinatorial meaning of Bell polynomials. We derive the exact formula for probability of a general system of N particles at temperature T to consist of k weakly coupled clusters of various sizes. We also show that the grand poten...

In these notes we describe heuristics to predict computational-to-statistical gaps in certain statistical problems. These are regimes in which the underlying statistical problem is information-theoretically possible although no efficient algorithm exists, rendering the problem essentially unsolvable for large instances. The methods we describe here are based on mature, albeit non-rigorous, tools from statistical physics. These notes are based on a lecture series given by th...

A critical examination of some basic conceptual issues in classical statistical mechanics is attempted, with a view to understanding the origins, structure and statuts of that discipline. Due attention is given to the interplay between physical and mathematical aspects, particularly regarding the role of probability theory. The focus is on the equilibrium case, which is currently better understood, serving also as a prelude for a further discussion of non-equilibrium statisti...

A brief introduction to the technique of Monte Carlo simulations in statistical physics is presented. The topics covered include statistical ensembles random and pseudo random numbers, random sampling techniques, importance sampling, Markov chain, Metropolis algorithm, continuous phase transition, statistical errors from correlated and uncorrelated data, finite size scaling, n-fold way, critical slowing down, blocking technique,percolation, cluster algorithms, cluster countin...

I propose a numerical simulation algorithm for statistical systems which combines a microcanonical transfer of energy with global changes in clusters of spins. The advantages of the cluster approach near a critical point augment the speed increases associated with multi-spin coding in the microcanonical approach. The method also provides a limited ability to tune the average cluster size.

We present a thermodynamic formulation for scale-invariant systems based on the minimization with constraints of Fisher's information measure. In such a way a clear analogy between these systems's thermal properties and those of gases and fluids is seen to emerge in natural fashion. We focus attention on the non-interacting scenario, speaking thus of scale-free ideal gases (SFIGs) and present some empirical evidences regarding such disparate systems as electoral results, city...

We consider a family of distributions on spatial random partitions that provide a coupling between different models of interest: the ideal Bose gas; the zero-range process; particle clustering; and spatial permutations. These distributions are invariant for a "chain of Chinese restaurants" stochastic process. We obtain results for the distribution of the size of the largest component.

In the last 15 years, statistical physics has been a very successful framework to model complex networks. On the theoretical side, this approach has brought novel insights into a variety of physical phenomena, such as self-organisation, scale invariance, emergence of mixed distributions and ensemble non-equivalence, that display unconventional features on heterogeneous networks. At the same time, thanks to their deep connection with information theory, statistical physics and...

An introductory review of Classical Statistical Mechanics

Coagulation-fragmentation processes describe the stochastic association and dissociation of particles in clusters. Cluster dynamics with cluster-cluster interactions for a finite number of particles has recently attracted attention especially in stochastic analysis and statistical physics of cellular biology, as novel experimental data is now available, but their interpretation remains challenging.} We derive here probability distribution functions for clusters that can eithe...