Quantum Transport Theory

Jorgen Rammer

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367314149
• eBook ISBN: 9780429982460
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Physics
• Index: Physics

This book provides an introduction to transport theory, the kinetic equation approach and shows the utility of Feynman diagrams in non-equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. It is helpful for a wider audience than students of condensed matter physics and physicists in general.

Chapter 1

Quantum Mechanics

In this chapter an introduction to quantum mechanics is given. After a brief description of quantum mechanics, we follow Feynman in section 1.1, and deduce the content of quantum mechanics from the few basic principles using the path integral formulation. Having thus established the notions of quantum mechanics, we introduce in section 1.2 the formulation in terms of the operator calculus. The reader with this basic knowledge of quantum mechanics has the necessary tools for understanding the content of the rest of the book. The rest of this chapter is thus not necessary reading (except perhaps for consulting section 1.8 where the statistical operator and the density matrix are introduced). The main part of chapter 1 is thus for the reader not satisfied with the intuitive and deductive introduction to quantum mechanics presented in sections 1.1 and 1.2. In section 1.3 and 1.4 we follow Schwinger, and induce from a few experimental facts the kinematic structure of quantum mechanics, i.e., the notions needed for describing physical systems. In section 1.5 we show how nonrelativistic quantum kinematics emerges from the general theory. In section 1.6 we discuss how physical quantities are related to symmetries through unitary transformations, and consider translations in detail. The presentation in section 1.7 of quantum dynamics, i.e., how the properties of a physical system change in time, stresses the unitary equivalence aspect, and in section 1.8 we introduce the statistical operator and the density matrix. The last section gives an i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Frontiers in Physics
• Editor’s Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Quantum Mechanics
• 2 Diagrammatic Perturbation Theory
• 3 Particle in a Random Potential
• 4 Kinetics in a Random Potential
• 5 Fermi Gas in a Random Potential
• 6 Particle in Oscillator Environment
• 7 Linear Response Theory
• 8 Linear Response of Disordered Conductors
• 9 Localization
• 10 Interactions in Metals
• 11 Weak Localization
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index