• Number of Credits: 3
• Prerequisites: Permission of the Graduate Committee
• Jose F Nieves
• Office: C-317 (ext 4775)
  University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras Campus
  Department of Physics

Text

• E. Fradkin (1991). Field Theories of Condensed Matter Physics (Frontiers in Physics, Addison Wesley).
• A. L. Fetter and J. D. Walecka (1971). Quantum theory of many-particle systems (McGraw Hill)

Bibliography

• John W. Negele, Henri Orland. Quantum Many Particle Systems
• Gerald D. Mahan. Many Particle Physics
• E. M. Lifshitz and L. Pitaevskii. Physical Kinetics, Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz: Volume 10. Pergamon

Minimum Required Facilities

• Traditional lecture room

Instructional Strategy

• Lectures

Student Evaluation

• Standard A to F grading system. Grading will depend on performance in periodic problem sets and a final exam, with the following weights:
• Homework: 70%
• Final exam: 30%

Homeworks

By all means you may work in groups on the homework assignments. Collaboration is an important part of learning and of scholarship in general. However, each student must turn in her or his own writeup of the solutions. If two individual writeups are nearly identical, neither will receive credit. In fairness to your fellow students, late homework will not be accepted.

Description

This is an introductory on the applications of field theory methods to many particle systems. The main topics to be discusses are: second quantisation and quantum field theory, the use Green’s functions for many body systems, derivation and use Feynman diagrams, linear response theory.

Objectives

After completing this course the student will have a good background to carry out basics quantum field theory calculations in systems of practical interest.

Contents

• Green functions
  • in Classical Mechanics
  • in Quantum Mechanics
• Green functions in Second quantization (Propagators in QFT)
  • Photons
  • Phonons
  • Matter (NR)
• Perturbation theory
  • Wick theorem
  • Feynman diagrams
  • Self-energy
  • Vertex function
  • Effective Lagrangian
  • Applications
    • Dielectric constant of a plasma
    • Plasma modes and plasma frequency
    • Debye screening
    • Interacting phonons
    • External fields

  RIGHTS OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
  ACOMODO RAZONABLE
  INTEGRIDAD ACADEMICA
  HOSTIGAMIENTO SEXUAL
  
  

  Jose F Nieves