This classic book gives, in extensive tables, the irreducible representations of the crystallographic point groups and space groups. These are useful in studying the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of a particle or quasi-particle in a crystalline solid. The theory is extended to the corepresentations of the Shubnikov groups.
This new edition of Kovalev's renowned text (first English edition, 1965) presents all the irreducible representations (IRs) and irreducible corepresentations (ICRs) for the 230 crystallographic space groups. In order to give readers the opportunity of representing generally the entire crystallographic symmetry, the method of inducing an IR of the local groups is presented first, and then complete lists of induced representations (InRs) which allow the calculation of the microstructure of any crystal (already known or not yet discovered, but geometrically not forbidden) in any physical question. For research students and researchers in theoretical aspects of solid state physics, crystallography, and space group theory. Translated from the second Russian edition of 1987. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This concise, class-tested book was refined over the authors’ 30 years as instructors at MIT and the University Federal of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. The approach centers on the conviction that teaching group theory along with applications helps students to learn, understand and use it for their own needs. Thus, the theoretical background is confined to introductory chapters. Subsequent chapters develop new theory alongside applications so that students can retain new concepts, build on concepts already learned, and see interrelations between topics. Essential problem sets between chapters aid retention of new material and consolidate material learned in previous chapters.
Symmetry: An Introduction to Group Theory and its Application is an eight-chapter text that covers the fundamental bases, the development of the theoretical and experimental aspects of the group theory. Chapter 1 deals with the elementary concepts and definitions, while Chapter 2 provides the necessary theory of vector spaces. Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to an opportunity of actually working with groups and representations until the ideas already introduced are fully assimilated. Chapter 5 looks into the more formal theory of irreducible representations, while Chapter 6 is concerned largely with quadratic forms, illustrated by applications to crystal properties and to molecular vibrations. Chapter 7 surveys the symmetry properties of functions, with special emphasis on the eigenvalue equation in quantum mechanics. Chapter 8 covers more advanced applications, including the detailed analysis of tensor properties and tensor operators. This book is of great value to mathematicians, and math teachers and students.
Graphs drawn on two-dimensional surfaces have always attracted researchers by their beauty and by the variety of difficult questions to which they give rise. The theory of such embedded graphs, which long seemed rather isolated, has witnessed the appearance of entirely unexpected new applications in recent decades, ranging from Galois theory to quantum gravity models, and has become a kind of a focus of a vast field of research. The book provides an accessible introduction to this new domain, including such topics as coverings of Riemann surfaces, the Galois group action on embedded graphs (Grothendieck's theory of "dessins d'enfants"), the matrix integral method, moduli spaces of curves, the topology of meromorphic functions, and combinatorial aspects of Vassiliev's knot invariants and, in an appendix by Don Zagier, the use of finite group representation theory. The presentation is concrete throughout, with numerous figures, examples (including computer calculations) and exercises, and should appeal to both graduate students and researchers.
Written in the spirit of Liboff's acclaimed text on Quantum Mechanics, this introduction to group theory offers an exceptionally clear presentation with a good sense of what to explain, which examples are most appropriate, and when to give a counter-example.
Reissue of Encyclopedia of Physics/Handbuch der Physik, Vol. XXV/2b I am very pleased that my book is now to be reprinted and rebound in a new format which should make it accessible at a modest price to students and active researchers in condensed matter physics. In writing this book I had in mind an audience of physicists and chemists with no previous deep exposure to symmetry analysis of crystalline matter, non to the use of symmetry in simplifying and refining predictions of the results of optical experiments. Hence the book was written to explain and illustrate in all necessary detail how to: 1) describe the space group symmetry in terms of space group symmetry operations; 2) obtain irreducible representations and selection rules for optical infra-red and Raman and other transition processes. On the physical side I redeveloped the traditional theory of classical and quantum lattice dynamics, illustrating how space-time symmetry designations in the equations of motion can: 1) simplify and rationalize calculations of the classical eigenvectors of the dynamical equation; 2) permit classification of the eigenstates of the quantum lattice-dynamic pro blem; 3) give specific selection rules for optical infra-red and Raman lattice processes, and thus make "go, no-go" predictions including polarization of absorbed or scattered radiation; and 4) simplify the modern many-body theories of optical processes.
