Universität Wien

260008 VO Advanced Statistical Physics and Soft Matter Physics (2020W)

6.00 ECTS (4.00 SWS), SPL 26 - Physik
Moodle

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Details

Language: English

Examination dates

Tuesday 26.01.2021 12:15 - 15:00 Digital Tuesday 02.03.2021 16:00 - 18:45 Digital

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Monday 12.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 13.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 19.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 20.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 27.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 03.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 09.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 10.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 16.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 17.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 23.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 24.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 30.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 01.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 07.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 14.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 15.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 11.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 12.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Monday 18.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien
Tuesday 19.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Ludwig-Boltzmann-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, EG, 1090 Wien

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This is a graduate-level course on phase transitions and critical phenomena. The main focus is on universality, critical exponents and the renormalization group, one of the major achievements of modern Physics, with applications in many areas ranging from particle physics to statistical mechanics, soft matter, condensed matter physics and hydrodynamics. Our emphasis is on statistical physics of condensed matter, covering the following topics.

1. Thermodynamic potentials and statistical ensembles
2. Models and symmetries
3. Mean field- and Landau-theory; phase transitions
4. Classification of critical points; universality classes
5. Scaling theory and Landau-Ginzburg theory
6. Introduction to the Renormalization Group (RG): Hamiltonian flow and fixed points; relevant and irrelevant operators
7. RG and critical exponents; universality explained
8. Real-space RG: decimation and majority rule
9. Momentum-space RG: the Gaussian- and Wilson-Fisher fixed points
10. 2d-systems with continuous symmetry: topological defects and the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition

Assessment and permitted materials

Written, open-book exam in class. The purpose of the course is to make you able to solve physical problems associated with the structural and phase behavior of model systems. At this level, it would be preferable to have a take-home exam for a period of one week or 10 days but this is not allowed by law. Therefore, we will have the exam in a traditional way in class. You will be given a set of problems to solve but you will be allowed to use any book, lecture notes, paper or material you deem appropriate.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

50% of the total points at the final exam

Examination topics

The Course forms a single entity with the associated exercise class 260009 PUE, which is listed separately for technical reasons only. The exercises are an integral part of the Course, because what we show in class will be worked upon and truly learned by individual and independent work on the homework sets of 260009 PUE. There will be one problem set distributed per week.

If you attend the class, read the literature and do the homework problems, you will have commanded sufficient knowledge of the exam contents, implying that you will then be able to confront and solve physical problems at the level of those given at the homework assignments.

Please visit the first class (October 12, 9:00 am at the Josef-Stefan Lecture Hall) for clarifications on the organizational details of the Class and the Exercises.

Reading list

Christos N. Likos, Lecture Notes on Advanced Statistical Physics -- manuscript set at disposal at the Moodle website of the Course.

Nigel Goldenfeld, Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group (Addison-Wesley, 1992)

Daniel J. Amit, Field Theory, the Renormalization Group, and Critical Phenomena (World Scientific, 1998)

Kerson Huang, Statistical Mechanics (Wiley, 1987)

Michel Le Bellac, Quantum and Statistical Field Theory (Oxford, 1991)

David Chandler, Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics (Oxford, 1987)

Julia M. Yeomans, Statistical Mechanics of Phase Transitions (Oxford, 1992)

Richard P. Feynman, Statistical Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, 1972)

Shang-Keng Ma, Modern Theory of Critical Phenomena (Addison-Wesley, 1982)

J. J. Binney, N. J. Dowrick, A. J. Fisher and M. E. J. Newman, The Theory of Critical Phenomena (Oxford, 1992)

David C. Venerus and Hans Christian Öttinger, A Modern Course in Transport Phenomena (Cambridge, 2018)

Michael E. Fisher, Renormalization group theory: Its basis and formulation in statistical physics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 653 (1998)

Association in the course directory

M-CORE 6, M-VAF A 1, MaG 4, MaG 10, MaG 14, UF MA PHYS 01a, UF MA PHYS 01b

Last modified: Fr 12.05.2023 00:21