Liquids and solids, atoms and molecules, nuclei—all these clearly are interacting many-body systems. Even a nucleon may be regarded as a manyparticle system, not just because it is now known to consist of three quarks interacting via gluons, but because of the possibility in quantum field theory of virtual excitation of many particles from the vacuum. in the table page 56 we list some of the many-particle systems we encounter in the physical world at length scales that range from a few centimeters to a few fermis. Many of these systems exhibit phenomena—superconductivity in solids and fission in nuclei, for example—whose understanding does not follow immediately from knowledge of the constituents of the system and the interactions among the constituents, but requires new concepts and ideas. Many-body physics is the branch of theoretical physics that studies the new phenomena or “emergent properties” that arise from interactions among “elementary” constituents of a many-particle system and provides means and methods for carrying out precise calculations of such characteristic properties of these systems as may be compared with experimental results to verify hypotheses about the nature of the constituents and their interactions.
Liquids and solids, atoms and molecules, nuclei—all these clearly are interacting many-body systems. Even a nucleon may be regarded as a manyparticle system, not just because it is now known to consist of three quarks interacting via gluons, but because of the possibility in quantum field theory of virtual excitation of many particles from the vacuum. in the table page 56 we list some of the many-particle systems we encounter in the physical world at length scales that range from a few centimeters to a few fermis. Many of these systems exhibit phenomena—superconductivity in solids and fission in nuclei, for example—whose understanding does not follow immediately from knowledge of the constituents of the system and the interactions among the constituents, but requires new concepts and ideas. Many-body physics is the branch of theoretical physics that studies the new phenomena or “emergent properties” that arise from interactions among “elementary” constituents of a many-particle system and provides means and methods for carrying out precise calculations of such characteristic properties of these systems as may be compared with experimental results to verify hypotheses about the nature of the constituents and their interactions.
This book is written with the graduate student in mind. I had in mind to write a text that would introduce my students to the basic ideas and concepts behind many-body physics. At the same time, I felt very strongly that I would like to share my excitement about this field, for without feeling the thrill of entering uncharted territory I do not think one has the motivation to learn and to make the passage from learning to research. Traditionally, as physicists we ask “what are the microscopic laws of nature?”, often proceeding with the brash certainty that, once revealed, these laws will have such profound beauty and symmetry that the properties of the universe at large will be self-evident. This basic philosophy can be traced from the earliest atomistic philosophy of Democritus to the most modern quests to unify quantum mechanics and gravity. The dreams and aspirations of many-body physics interwine the reductionist approach with a complementary philosophy: that of emergent phenomena . In this view, fundamentally new kinds of phenomena emerge within complex assemblies of particles which cannot be anticipated from an a priori knowledge of the microscopic laws of nature. Many-body physics aspires to synthesize, from the microscopic laws, new principles that govern the macroscopic realm, asking: What emergent principles and laws develop as we make the journey from the microscopic to the macroscopic? This is a comparatively modern and far less familiar scientific philosophy. Charles Darwin was perhaps the first to seek an understanding of emergent laws of nature. Following in his footsteps, Ludwig Boltzmann and James Clerk Maxwell were among the first physicists to appreciate the need to understand how emergent principles are linked to microscopic physics. From Boltzmann's biography [1], we learn that he was strongly influenced and inspired by Charles Darwin. In more modern times, a strong advocate of this philosophy has been Philip W. Anderson, who first introduced the phrase “emergent phenomenon” into physics. In an influential article entitled “More is different,” written in 1967 [2], he captured the philosophy of emergence, writing: The behavior of large and complex aggregations of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles.[…]
This book provides an essential introduction to the physics of quantum many-body systems, which are at the heart of atomic and nuclear physics, condensed matter, and particle physics. Unlike other textbooks on the subject, it covers topics across a broad range of physical fields―phenomena as well as theoretical tools―and does so in a simple and accessible way. Edward Shuryak begins with Feynman diagrams of the quantum and statistical mechanics of a particle―in these applications, the diagrams are easy to calculate and there are no divergencies. He discusses the renormalization group and illustrates its uses and covers systems such as weakly and strongly coupled Bose and Fermi gases, electron gas, nuclear matter, and quark-gluon plasmas. Phenomena include Bose condensation and superfluidity. Shuryak also looks at Cooper pairing and superconductivity for electrons in metals, liquid 3He, nuclear matter, and quark-gluon plasma. A recurring topic throughout is topological matter, ranging from ensembles of quantized vortices in superfluids and superconductors to ensembles of colored (QCD) monopoles and instantons in the QCD vacuum.
Summary A brief account is given of the reasons why the many-body problem has recently become the subject of a rapidly expanding literature. After a survey of the main ideas of recent theories, it is shown how these ideas have played a rôle in giving us a better understanding of such topics as superconductivity, plasmas, and liquid helium. In the theory of the many-body problem the main branches of theoretical physics applied are Hamiltonian mechanics or quantum mechanics (to describe the motion of the constituent particles of the many-body system under consideration) and statistical mechanics (to describe the collective action of the large number of particles in the system). As these subjects are relatively advanced we have discussed in an appendix the main concepts of Hamiltonian mechanics and some of those of quantum statistics, including the definition and some of the properties of fermions and bosons.
In this book, we encounter the hierarchy problem when we apply the equation-of-motion technique to analyze the quantum dynamics of the coupled light–matter system. To obtain systematic approximations, we use the so-called cluster-expansion method where many-body quantities are systematically grouped into cluster classes based on how important they are to the overall quantum dynamics. With increasing complexity, the clusters contain independent single particles (singlets), interacting pairs (doublets), three-particle terms (triplets), coupled four-particle contributions (quadruplets), as well as higher-order correlations. In this context, the N -particle concept is somewhat formal because it refers to generic N -particle expectation values 〈 N 〉, which may consist of an arbitrary mixture of carrier, photon, and phonon operators, as discussed in Section 14.2. In order to truncate the hierarchy problem at a given level, 〈 N 〉 is approximated through a functional structure that includes all clusters up to the predetermined level while all remaining clusters with a higher rank are omitted. It is natural that the corresponding approximations can be systematically improved by increasing the number of clusters included. To the best of our knowledge, the idea of coupled-clusters approaches was first formulated by Fritz Coester and Hermann Kümmel in the 1950s to describe nuclear many-body phenomena. The approach was then modified for the needs of quantum chemistry by Jiri Cizek 1966 to deal with many-body phenomena in atoms and molecules. Currently, it is one of the most accurate methods to compute molecular eigenstates.
The interaction among fundamental particles in nature leads to many interesting effects in quantum statistical mechanics; examples include superconductivity for charged systems and superfluidity in cold gases. It is a huge challenge for mathematical physics to understand the collective behavior of systems containing a large number of particles, emerging from known microscopic interactions. In this workshop we brought together researchers working on different aspects of many-body quantum mechanics to discuss recent developments, exchange ideas and propose new challenges and research directions.
The experimental revolution in ultracold atomic gas physics over the past decades has brought tremendous amounts of new insight to the world of degenerate quantum systems. Here we compare and contrast the developments of cold atomic gases with the physics of nuclei since many concepts, techniques, and nomenclatures are common to both fields. However, nuclei are finite systems with interactions that are typically much more complicated than those of ultracold atomic gases. The similarities and differences must therefore be carefully addressed for a meaningful comparison and to facilitate fruitful crossdisciplinary activity. We first consider condensates of bosonic and paired systems of fermionic particles with the mean-field description, but take great care to point out potential problems in the limit of small particle numbers. Along the way we review some of the basic results of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) and Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory, as well as the BCS–BEC crossover and the Fermi gas in the unitarity limit, all within the context of ultracold atoms. Subsequently, we consider the specific example of an atomic Fermi gas from a nuclear physics perspective, comparing degrees of freedom, interactions, and relevant length and energy scales of cold atoms and nuclei. Next we address some attempts in nuclear physics to transfer the concepts of condensates in nuclei that can in principle be built from bosonic alpha-particle constituents. We also consider Efimov physics, a prime example of nuclear physics transferred to cold atoms, and consider which systems are more likely to show interesting bound state spectra. Finally, we address some recent studies of the BCS–BEC crossover in light nuclei and compare them to the concepts used in ultracold atomic gases. While many-body concepts such as BEC or BCS states are applicable in both subfields, we find that the interactions and finite particle numbers in nuclei can obscure the clear meaning they have in cold atoms. On the other hand, universal results from atomic physics should have an impact on certain limits of the nuclear domain. In particular, with advances in the trapping of few-body atomic systems we expect a more direct exchange of ideas and results.