Scaling and Renormalization in Statistical Physics (Cambridge Lecture Notes in Physics)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 256 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press April 26, 1996
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521499593
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521499590
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 14.9 ounces

Product Review
"Cardy has made significant contributions to almost all the topics covered in the second half of the book, and he has been one of the leaders in developing the use of conformal invariance in statistical mechanics.I think this challenging book will prove evry useful to those trying to learn the subject, provided that they take the time to read widely in the supplementary references." David Thouless, Physics Today

"The book may be advised for physics graduate students and for professionals who want to get an introduction to one of the most creative concepts of modern physics." Sergei A. Nemnyugin, Mathematical Reviews

Product Description
This text provides a thoroughly modern graduate-level introduction to the theory of critical behavior. Beginning with a brief review of phase transitions in simple systems and of mean field theory, the text then goes on to introduce the core ideas of the renormalization group. Following chapters cover phase diagrams, fixed points, cross-over behavior, finite-size scaling, perturbative renormalization methods, low-dimensional systems, surface critical behavior, random systems, percolation, polymer statistics, critical dynamics and conformal symmetry. The book closes with an appendix on Gaussian integration, a selected bibliography, and a detailed index. Many problems are included. The emphasis throughout is on providing an elementary and intuitive approach. In particular, the perturbative method introduced leads, among applications, to a simple derivation of the epsilon expansion in which all the actual calculations (at least to lowest order) reduce to simple counting, avoiding the need for Feynman diagrams.

Reader Reviews
This book deals with a most interesting and dynamical area of modern research in physics. In the frontmatters, Cardy explains that, too often, in the past, students who were willing to go into research in condensed matter as quickly as possible, found a difficult time struggling and mastering techniques that were initially devised for particule physics. K. Wilson built an arch between these two sub-fields of physics, through his Nobel-prize-worth insights. However, as Cardy rightly points out, renormalization group methods can be more efficiently explained, learnt and applied by condensed matter, in a Feynman-diagram inspired presentation of the perturbative renormalization group. This subject then reduce to relatively simple combinatorics. This is one of this book main contribution. After explaining carefully scaling concepts and the various corresponding laws of critical phenomena, as well as field theory and Landau-Ginzburg theory, Cardy goes on to explain those from renormalization group methods. The usual (exactly solved) statistical models appear at various parts of the book. Welcome additions to the literature are chapters on random systems (those with impureties), polymer physics and critical dynamics. A final chapter offers a primer on how conformal symmetry pops out at the critical point. This is a most active subject of current research in the field. I should stress however that this book is meant for advanced students. The typical student would have a background in phase transitions and statistical physics, as well as prior acquaintance with basic (quantum)field theory. This book would probably be more profitably read with a more experienced student or a teacher at hand, for it is written in a rather condensed form and due to the vastness of the subject can hardly give an overview of it. Comment | | (Report this)