Universität Wien
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260008 VO Advanced Statistical Physics and Soft Matter Physics (2025W)

6.00 ECTS (4.00 SWS), SPL 26 - Physik
Moodle
Fr 03.10. 09:00-10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien

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Details

Language: English

Lecturers

    Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

    • Tuesday 07.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 10.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 14.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 17.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 21.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 24.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 28.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 31.10. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 04.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 07.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 11.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 14.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 18.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 21.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 25.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 28.11. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 02.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 05.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 09.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 12.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 16.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 19.12. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 09.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 13.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 16.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Tuesday 20.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 1090 Wien
    • Friday 23.01. 09:00 - 10:30 Josef-Stefan-Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 5, 3. Stk., 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

    Note on videos and streaming: Although I do understand the wish to be able to watch videos of the lecture, I am strictly against this practice. The University is a place where students come together to attend live courses and to participate in the experience of active exchange of ideas and questions between human beings in a real, physical environment. The practice of recording classes may appear appealing at first, as it has the advantage of allowing people to follow up in case they cannot attend. However, its side-effects are severely detrimental: too many people drift into not attending any live classes at all, causing serious damage to the whole culture of teaching at an Institution of Higher Education. For these reasons, neither streaming nor videos of the course will be offered.

    Assessment and permitted materials

    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, in-class exams are not appropriate. Accordingly, we will have a take-home exam for a period of 10-15 days. You will be given a set of problems to solve and you will be allowed to use any book, lecture notes, paper or material you deem appropriate. Discussions are also allowed, provided they are acknowledged in writing.

    Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

    50% of the total points at the final exam

    Mark key:

    100 - 89 points: mark 1
    88 - 76 points: mark 2
    75 - 63 points: mark 3
    62 - 50 points: mark 4

    < 50 points: fail

    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 at the end of the course 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 3, 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, 1988)

    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, UF MA PHYS 01a, UF MA PHYS 01b

    Last modified: Fr 27.06.2025 00:02