
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
The only graduate-level textbook on quantum field theory that fully integrates perspectives from high-energy, condensed-matter, and statistical physics
Quantum field theory was originally developed to describe quantum electrodynamics and other fundamental problems in high-energy physics, but today has become an invaluable conceptual and mathematical framework for addressing problems across physics, including in condensed-matter and statistical physics. With this expansion of applications has come a new and deeper understanding of quantum field theory—yet this perspective is still rarely reflected in teaching and textbooks on the subject. Developed from a year-long graduate course Eduardo Fradkin has taught for years to students of high-energy, condensed-matter, and statistical physics, this comprehensive textbook provides a fully "multicultural" approach to quantum field theory, covering the full breadth of its applications in one volume.
- Brings together perspectives from high-energy, condensed-matter, and statistical physics in both the main text and exercises
- Takes students from basic techniques to the frontiers of physics
- Pays special attention to the relation between measurements and propagators and the computation of cross sections and response functions
- Focuses on renormalization and the renormalization group, with an emphasis on fixed points, scale invariance, and their role in quantum field theory and phase transitions
- Other topics include non-perturbative phenomena, anomalies, and conformal invariance
- Features numerous examples and extensive problem sets
- Also serves as an invaluable resource for researchers
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction to Field Theory
- 2. Classical Field Theory
- 3. Classical Symmetries and Conservation Laws
- 4. Canonical Quantization
- 5. Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory
- 6. Nonrelativistic Field Theory
- 7. Quantization of the Free Dirac Field
- 8. Coherent-State Path-Integral Quantization of Quantum Field Theory
- 9. Quantization of Gauge Fields
- 10. Observables and Propagators
- 11. Perturbation Theory and Feynman Diagrams
- 12. Vertex Functions, the Effective Potential, and Symmetry Breaking
- 13. Perturbation Theory, Regularization, and Renormalization
- 14. Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Mechanics
- 15. The Renormalization Group
- 16. The Perturbative Renormalization Group
- 17. The 1/N Expansions
- 18. Phases of Gauge Theories
- 19. Instantons and Solitons
- 20. Anomalies in Quantum Field Theory
- 21. Conformal Field Theory
- 22. Topological Field Theory
- References
- Index