Ensembles in thermostatistics

Thermostatistical ensembles are collectives whose average behaviour reflects the actual behaviour of a physical system.

History

The concept of thermostatistical ensembles was introduced by Josiah Willard Gibbs (Ref. ?). Albert Einstein also also, independently, introduced ensembles (Refs. 2 and 3).

Frequently encountered ensembles

• Canonical ensemble ($NVT$)
• Gibbs ensemble
• Grand canonical ensemble (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \mu VT} )
• Isothermal-isobaric ensemble (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle NpT} )
• Microcanonical ensemble (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle NVE} )

See also

• Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo
• Monte Carlo in the grand-canonical ensemble
• Monte Carlo in the microcanonical ensemble