Statistical Physics: Electromagnetic Cavities and Black Body Radiation

This was my project for my Statistical and Thermal Physics class.

I computed the black body spectral distribution of a cylindrical and spherical electromagnetic resonant cavity and compared it to that of a cubic resonant cavity that is used to derive fundamental theorems of statistical mechanics. To do this I computed the density of states of the cylindrical and spherical cavities between a small variation of energy (frequency). The results showed almost equal spectral distribution and density of states for a cylindrical cavity as that of a cubic cavity. The spherical cavity gave me odd results which I believe is because of the calculated zeros to the spherical Bessel function (which were calculated via both Newton Rhapson and Bisection methods).

Unfortunately, it is difficult to copy equations over from my paper so I decided to just paste it as an open google doc.

Enjoy the read!