The atomic and molecular nature of matter (Q1090018)

The author proves that electrons and protons, interacting by Coulomb forces and governed by quantum statistical mechanics at suitable temperature and density, form a gas of hydrogen atoms or molecules. In order to prove the principal result the author obtains some estimates for the partition function for a single ball and for Coulomb systems. In the other part he explains how to estimate the expected values of certain observables and illustrates, as an application, that the vast majority of the electrons and protons pair up into ''atoms''.