The contributions in the book are devoted to the memory of Michael E Fisher, and hence include many personal memories from people whose work was influenced by him. Also, the book is a collection of articles from leaders in the field of phase transitions and critical phenomena, to celebrate 50 years of the renormalization group and the 1972 paper by Wilson and Fisher. Many of the articles review, in tutorial form, the progress in the fields of phase transitions and the renormalization group.
The contributions in the book are devoted to the memory of Michael E Fisher, and hence include many personal memories from people whose work was influenced by him. Also, the book is a collection of articles from leaders in the field of phase transitions and critical phenomena, to celebrate 50 years of the renormalization group and the 1972 paper by Wilson and Fisher. Many of the articles review, in tutorial form, the progress in the fields of phase transitions and the renormalization group.
Provides comprehensive coverage of the fundamentals of mesoscopic thermodynamics Mesoscopic Thermodynamics for Scientists and Engineers presents a unified conceptual approach to the core principles of equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Emphasizing the concept of universality at the mesoscale, this authoritative textbook provides the knowledge required for understanding and utilizing mesoscopic phenomena in a wide range of new and emerging technologies. Divided into two parts, Mesoscopic Thermodynamics for Scientists and Engineers opens with a concise summary of classical thermodynamics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, followed by a detailed description of fluctuations and local (spatially-dependent) properties. Part II presents a universal approach to specific meso-heterogeneous systems, illustrated by numerous examples from experimental and computational studies that align with contemporary research and engineering practice. Bridges the gap between conventional courses in thermodynamics and real-world practice Provides in-depth instruction on applying thermodynamics to current problems involving meso- and nano-heterogeneous systems Contains a wealth of examples of simple and complex fluids, polymers, liquid crystals, and supramolecular equilibrium and dissipative structures Includes practical exercises and references to textbooks, monographs, and journal articles in each chapter Mesoscopic Thermodynamics for Scientists and Engineers is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry, and chemical, mechanical, and materials science engineering, as well as an invaluable reference for engineers and researchers engaged in soft-condensed matter physics and chemistry, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and mechanical, chemical, and biomolecular engineering.
Describing the physical properties of quantum materials near critical points with long-range many-body quantum entanglement, this book introduces readers to the basic theory of quantum phases, their phase transitions and their observable properties. This second edition begins with a new section suitable for an introductory course on quantum phase transitions, assuming no prior knowledge of quantum field theory. It also contains several new chapters to cover important recent advances, such as the Fermi gas near unitarity, Dirac fermions, Fermi liquids and their phase transitions, quantum magnetism, and solvable models obtained from string theory. After introducing the basic theory, it moves on to a detailed description of the canonical quantum-critical phase diagram at non-zero temperatures. Finally, a variety of more complex models are explored. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in condensed matter physics and particle and string theory.
During a century, from the Van der Waals mean field description (1874) of gases to the introduction of renormalization group (RG techniques 1970), thermodynamics and statistical physics were just unable to account for the incredible universality which was observed in numerous critical phenomena. The great success of RG techniques is not only to solve perfectly this challenge of critical behaviour in thermal transitions but to introduce extremely useful tools in a wide field of daily situations where a system exhibits scale invariance. The introduction of scaling, scale invariance and universality concepts has been a significant turn in modern physics and more generally in natural sciences. Since then, a new "physics of scaling laws and critical exponents", rooted in scaling approaches, allows quantitative descriptions of numerous phenomena, ranging from phase transitions to earthquakes, polymer conformations, heartbeat rhythm, diffusion, interface growth and roughening, DNA sequence, dynamical systems, chaos and turbulence. The chapters are jointly written by an experimentalist and a theorist. This book aims at a pedagogical overview, offering to the students and researchers a thorough conceptual background and a simple account of a wide range of applications. It presents a complete tour of both the formal advances and experimental results associated with the notion of scaling, in physics, chemistry and biology.
The subject of the exact renormalization group started from pioneering work by Wegner and Houghton in the early seventies and, a decade later, by Polchinski, who formulated the Wilson renormalization group for field theory. In the past decade considerable progress has been made in this field, which includes the development of alternative formulations of the approach and of powerful techniques for solving the exact renormalization group equations, as well as widening of the scope of the exact renormalization group method to include fermions and gauge fields. In particular, two very recent results, namely the manifestly gauge-invariant formulation of the exact renormalization group equation and the proof of the c-theorem in four dimensions, are presented in this volume.
This textbook concentrates on modern topics in statistical physics with an emphasis on strongly interacting condensed matter systems. The book is self-contained and is suitable for beginning graduate students in physics and materials science or undergraduates who have taken an introductory course in statistical mechanics. Phase transitions and critical phenomena are discussed in detail including mean field and Landau theories and the renormalization group approach. The theories are applied to a number of interesting systems such as magnets, liquid crystals, polymers, membranes, interacting Bose and Fermi fluids; disordered systems, percolation and spin of equilibrium concepts are also discussed. Computer simulations of condensed matter systems by Monte Carlo-based and molecular dynamics methods are treated.
During the last six decades, Yang-Mills theory has increasingly become the cornerstone of theoretical physics. It is seemingly the only fully consistent relativistic quantum many-body theory in four space-time dimensions. As such it is the underlying theoretical framework for the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which has been shown to be the correct theory at the energies we now can measure. It has been investigated also from many other perspectives, and many new and unexpected features have been uncovered from this theory. In recent decades, apart from high energy physics, the theory has been actively applied in other branches of physics, such as statistical physics, condensed matter physics, nonlinear systems, etc. This makes the theory an indispensable topic for all who are involved in physics.The conference celebrated the exceptional achievements using Yang-Mills theory over the years but also many other truly remarkable contributions to different branches of physics from Prof C N Yang. This volume collects the invaluable talks by Prof C N Yang and the invited speakers reviewing these remarkable contributions and their importance for the future of physics.
