Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) by Claude Itzykson (PDF)

Description

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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “I strongly recommend these two volumes to anyone from intermediate graduate students to active experienced researchers to aging veterans who need to be reminded of or learn for the first time the broad conceptual framework underlying the many current applications of field theoretic methods.” Paul Ginsparg, Foundations of Physics”…an excellent pedagogically oriented introduction to the essential fundamentals of this rapidly expanding field. The level of treatment and clarity make it suitable for use as a primary reference in a graduate course.” D. J. Geldart, Physics in Canada Book Description This two-volume work provides 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.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐i think the first chapter is a b—- to get through, but after i did that i found the entire book either particularly useful or insightful. volume two never motivated it’s own purchase.I read it in frech, so i cant talk about how well things are explained in english, just in case anything was lost in translation, but with something like chapter two on grassman variables i dont think it’s such a big deal. to put it succintly chapter 2 makes berezin’s book obsolete to me and i feel that way about the whole book.

⭐This book (volumes 1 and 2) was released during the time that 2-dimensional research in mathematical physics was at its peak. At that time, there were important new results on conformal field theory, quantum integrable models, 2-dimensional quantum gravity, lattice models, quantum groups as symmetries and, of course, application of all of them to statistical physics and condensed matter physics every day (or so I believe now). As such, it was a book highly in need: A book that would take the majority of the results and present them to the interested reader in a concise, organized and useful way. Unfortunately, the book fulfilled the expectation of including the majority of the topics and the advancements which happened, but failed badly in being organized and really useful.Of course the authors had to take some decisions what to include and what to exclude. Several important topics are missing (such as quantum group symmetries, integrable perturbations of conformal field theory, etc.) but this is not really a problem. Every author has to make some hard choices. The problem is that, for the topics included, the authors have failed to present them in an organized and useful way. What is presented is almost identical material that can be found in the research papers, without additional calculations and details. The authors act mainly as newscasters reading results from papers placed in front of them. As such, the only benefit of the book is that it collects many interesting topics together (thus, a list for the reader) and provides at the end of each chapter a thorough bibliography. For those readers who are not aware of the originals papers, this bibliography will be invaluable.Unfortunately, the authors missed a great opportunity to provide a highly useful book. You may still want to have it if you need a book to give you some directions in the vast bibliography of applications of mathematical physics in statistical field theory. But do not expect to fall in love with this book.

⭐This book is simply awful.I couldn’t understand a lot of derivations.Before buying this book I studied the standard course on QFT by Peskin and Schroeder.(I solved 95% of its problems, so I’m not stupid!).The reason I bought the book by Itzykson and Drouffe was to study some interesting advanced topics in QFT.I began with Ising model and immediately got stuck.I read previous reviews on this book. The authors praised it.I wonder if any of them could proceed from formula 65 to 66?(first volume)Did any of them understand the derivation of Szego lemma?What about Kac determinant?I found that even original article by Itzykson was written betterand with more care than this book.(!)Still it’s worth buying as the source of references.That’s why one *.

⭐Nothing to complain about.

Keywords

Free Download Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) in PDF format
Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) PDF Free Download
Download Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) 1991 PDF Free
Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) 1991 PDF Free Download
Download Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics) PDF
Free Download Ebook Statistical Field Theory: Volume 1, From Brownian Motion to Renormalization and Lattice Gauge Theory (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics)