Math Courses

Probability and Statistical Mechanics. Part 2: Probability theory for statistical mechanics

by Lu Xu

Europe/Rome
Description

Course Schedule

     Mon                         Tue                          Wed                  Thu                  Fri

2/12 8.30-10.30     3/12 10.30-12.30                         5/12 8.30-10.30

9/12 8.30-10.30     10/12 10.30-12.30                       12/12 8.30-10.30

16/12 8.30-10.30   17/12 10.30-12.30                       19/12 8.30-10.30

 

An overview of the course

1. Preliminary

- Random variable

--- probability space, probability distribution, probability density function, expectation, independence

--- important examples: exponential distribution, Gaussian distribution, Gaussian vectors

- Conditional expectation

--- definition, basic properties

--- computation of conditional expectation

- Convergence

--- strong and weak convergence

--- vague topology, Prokhorov’s theorem

- Basic measure theory*

--- absolutely continuity, Radon–Nikod´ym theorem*

--- Lebesgue’s decomposition theorem*

2. Limit theorems

- law of large numbers

--- topology on infinite product space, i.i.d. sequence

--- strong law for i.i.d. sequence

- central limit theorem (i.i.d. case)

- large deviations (i.i.d. case)

--- moment-generating function, Legendre transformation

3. Stochastic process

- Basic concepts

--- sample paths, distribution, finite dimensional distribution

- Poisson process

--- Poisson distribution, distribution of Poisson process

--- semigroup, infinitesimal generator

--- limit theorems, homogenization

- Brownian motion

--- construction of Brownian motion, Donsker’s theorem, Wiener measure

--- Brownian sample paths*

--- a first look at (Ito) stochastic integral*

4. Poisson point process*

- introduction to point process*

--- definition of Poisson process as a point process*

- Poisson point process on Rd*

--- definition, law of large numbers, central limit theorem*

 

A draft of lecture notes can be found here.