Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory

By Claude Itzykson and Jean-Michel Drouffe

Book Overview

A comprehensive and timely survey of the application of the methods of quantum field theory to statistical physics, a very active and fruitful area of modern research, is provided in two volumes. The first volume provides a pedagogical introduction to the subject, discussing Brownian motion, its anticommutative counterpart in the guise of Onsager's solution to the two-dimensional Ising model, the mean field or Landau approximation, scaling ideas exemplified by the Kosterlitz-Thouless theory for the XY transition, the continuous renormalization group applied to the standard phi-to-the-fourth theory (the simplest typical case) and lattice gauge theory as a pathway to the understanding of quark confinement in quantum chromodynamics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521408059
• ISBN13: 9780521408059
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 428 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.0"