Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter: An Introduction

by Ramamurti Shankar

Providing a broad review of many techniques and their application to condensed matter systems, this book begins with a review of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, before moving onto real and imaginary time path integrals and the link between Euclidean quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. A detailed study of the Ising, gauge-Ising and XY models is included. The renormalization group is developed and applied to critical phenomena, Fermi liquid theory and the renormalization of field theories. Next, the book explores bosonization and its applications to one-dimensional fermionic systems and the correlation functions of homogeneous and random-bond Ising models. It concludes with Bohm–Pines and Chern–Simons theories applied to the quantum Hall effect.  Introducing the reader to a variety of techniques, it opens up vast areas of condensed matter theory for both graduate students and researchers in theoretical, statistical and condensed matter physics.

Genres: Physics

450 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 31, 2017

About the author

Ramamurti Shankar (born April 28, 1947) is the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. His research is in theoretical condensed matter physics, although he is also known for his earlier work in theoretical particle physics. In 2009, Shankar was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize from the American Physical Society for "innovative applications of field theoretic techniques to quantum condensed matter systems". He received his B. Tech in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and his Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from the University of California, Berkeley (1974). After three years at the Harvard Society of Fellows, he joined the Yale physics department, which he chaired between 2001-2007. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is dedicated to teaching and has published three texts: Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Basic Training in Mathematics: A Fitness Program for Science Students and Fundamentals of Physics.