Publisher's Synopsis
This study provides a systematic approach to the quantum theory of collective phenomena, based principally on the model of infinite systems. The author sets the theory within the framework of modern statistical mechanics, formulating it in rigorous, though relatively simple, mathematical terms. This approach leads to a generalized form of statistical thermodynamic, and to useful characterizations of such collective phenomena as phase transitions, irreversibility, and metastability, going beyond the scope of traditional statistical mechanics of finite systems.
