Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/ii/paper-1/36a/a/solution

The microcanonical ensemble describes an isolated system at fixed energy , volume , and particle number , assigning equal weight to accessible states in a narrow energy shell.
The canonical ensemble describes a system that can exchange energy with a heat reservoir at fixed temperature , while and remain fixed. A microstate has probability
The grand canonical ensemble allows exchange of both energy and particles at fixed , , and chemical potential . Its state weights are
The choice is irrelevant for bulk thermodynamic observables in the thermodynamic limit when the system is additive, has sufficiently short-range interactions, and lies away from singular phase-coexistence regimes. Then relative energy and particle-number fluctuations vanish as the system size grows. These are the standard conditions for equivalence of statistical ensembles.

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