Title: The role of angular momentum conservation law in statistical mechanics
Author(s):

I.M. Dubrovskii (Institute for Metal Physics, 36 Vernadsky Str., Kyiv 03680, Ukraine)

Within the limits of Khinchin ideas [A.Y. Khinchin, Mathematical Foundation of Statistical Mechanics. NY, Ed. Dover, 1949] the importance of momentum and angular momentum conservation laws was analyzed for two cases: for uniform magnetic field and when magnetic field is absent. The law of momentum conservation does not change the density of probability distribution in both cases, just as it is assumed in the conventional theory. It is shown that in systems where the kinetic energy depends only on particle momenta canonically conjugated with Cartesian coordinates being their diagonal quadric form,the angular momentum conservation law changes the density of distribution of the system only in case the full angular momentum of a system is not equal to zero. In the gas of charged particles in a uniform magnetic field the density of distribution also varies if the angular momentum is zero [see Dubrovskii I.M., Condensed Matter Physics, 2206, 9, 23]. Two-dimensional gas of charged particles located within a section of an endless strip filled with gas in magnetic field is considered. Under such conditions the angular momentum is not conserved. Directional particle flows take place close to the strip boundaries, and, as a consequence, the phase trajectory of the considered set of particles does not remain within the limited volume of the phase space. In order to apply a statistical thermodynamics method, it was suggested to consider near-boundary trajectories relative to a reference system that moves uniformly. It was shown that if the diameter of an orbit having average thermal energy is much smaller than a strip width, the corrections to thermodynamic functions are small depending on magnetic field. Only the average velocity of near-boundary particles that form near-boundary electric currents creating the paramagnetic moment turn out to be essential.

Key words: phase space, invariant set, integral of motion, angular momentum, electron gas, magnetic field
PACS: 05.20.Gg, 75.20.-g

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