Course term: Michaelmas
Course lecture information: 16 lectures
Course weight: 1
Assessment type: Written Examination
Course overview:
Lecturer: Prof Steve Simon
Course synopsis:
This course serves as part of the C6 theory option and also serves as
a notional prerequisite for several of the quantum matter courses
(QM2,QM3,QM4) that follow.
Part 1: Phases and Phase Transitions. Phase transitions and
Universality. Landau Theory and Applications. Ginzburg-Landau
theory: Upper and Lower critical dimensions. Spontaneous Symmetry
Breaking. Goldstone modes. Mermin Wagner Theorem.
Part 2: Many Body Quantum Field Theory. Working with Fock Space and
Second Quantization. Applications to Fermi Systems, Weakly interating
Bosons (Bogoliubov theory) and Spin waves.