Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Indeed, its successes and importance were vividly illustrated prior to the conference by the sharing of the 1998 Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry by three many-body theorists. Two of those Nobel laureates, Walter Kohn and Bob Laughlin, delivered invited lectures at this meeting, the tenth in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. This series is universally recognized as being the premier series of meetings on this subject, and its proceedings have always summarized the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. A major aim of this conference series has been to foster the exchange of ideas between physicists working in all the diverse fields of application of quantum many-body theory. These include nuclear and subnuclear physics, quantum fluids, strongly correlated electronic systems, and low-dimensional condensed-matter systems and materials. All of these fields and others are represented in the present volume. Other topical themes covered include density functional theory and its applications to nuclear and electronic systems, quantum dots and chaos, and trapped Bose?Einstein condensates. Through this breadth of applications the reader will get a clear illustration of the power of the tools of modern microscopic quantum many-body theory, and their usefulness both in achieving a commonality of approach and understanding, and in transferring powerful ideas from one field to another.
Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Indeed, its successes and importance were vividly illustrated prior to the conference by the sharing of the 1998 Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry by three many-body theorists. Two of those Nobel laureates, Walter Kohn and Bob Laughlin, delivered invited lectures at this meeting, the tenth in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. This series is universally recognized as being the premier series of meetings on this subject, and its proceedings have always summarized the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. A major aim of this conference series has been to foster the exchange of ideas between physicists working in all the diverse fields of application of quantum many-body theory. These include nuclear and subnuclear physics, quantum fluids, strongly correlated electronic systems, and low-dimensional condensed-matter systems and materials. All of these fields and others are represented in the present volume. Other topical themes covered include density functional theory and its applications to nuclear and electronic systems, quantum dots and chaos, and trapped Bose?Einstein condensates. Through this breadth of applications the reader will get a clear illustration of the power of the tools of modern microscopic quantum many-body theory, and their usefulness both in achieving a commonality of approach and understanding, and in transferring powerful ideas from one field to another.
Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Indeed, its successes and importance were vividly illustrated prior to the conference by the sharing of the 1998 Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry by three many-body theorists. Two of those Nobel laureates, Walter Kohn and Bob Laughlin, delivered invited lectures at this meeting, the tenth in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. This series is universally recognized as being the premier series of meetings on this subject, and its proceedings have always summarized the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. A major aim of this conference series has been to foster the exchange of ideas between physicists working in all the diverse fields of application of quantum many-body theory. These include nuclear and subnuclear physics, quantum fluids, strongly correlated electronic systems, and low-dimensional condensed-matter systems and materials. All of these fields and others are represented in the present volume. Other topical themes covered include density functional theory and its applications to nuclear and electronic systems, quantum dots and chaos, and trapped Bose?Einstein condensates. Through this breadth of applications the reader will get a clear illustration of the power of the tools of modern microscopic quantum many-body theory, and their usefulness both in achieving a commonality of approach and understanding, and in transferring powerful ideas from one field to another.
Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Its most powerful techniques are truly universal. They are constantly expanding to find new fields of application, while advances continue to be made in the more traditional areas. To commemorate the impending 80th birthdays of its two co-inventors, Firtz Coester and Hermann K�mmel, one such technique, namely the coupled cluster method, was especially highlighted at this meeting, the eleventh in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. The history of the coupled cluster method as told here mirrors in many ways both the development of the entire discipline of microscopic quantum many-body theory and the history of the series of conferences. The series itself is universally recognised as being the premier series of meetings in this subject area. Its proceedings have always summarised the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. No serious researcher in quantum many-body theory or in any field which uses it can afford to be without this volume.
Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Its most powerful techniques are truly universal. They are constantly expanding to find new fields of application, while advances continue to be made in the more traditional areas. To commemorate the impending 80th birthdays of its two co-inventors, Firtz Coester and Hermann Kümmel, one such technique, namely the coupled cluster method, was especially highlighted at this meeting, the eleventh in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. The history of the coupled cluster method as told here mirrors in many ways both the development of the entire discipline of microscopic quantum many-body theory and the history of the series of conferences. The series itself is universally recognised as being the premier series of meetings in this subject area. Its proceedings have always summarised the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. No serious researcher in quantum many-body theory or in any field which uses it can afford to be without this volume.
The present volume contains the texts of the invited talks delivered at the Fifth International Conference on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories held in Oulu, Finland during the period 3-8 August 1987. The general format and style of the meeting followed closely those which had evolved from the earlier conferences in the series: Trieste 1978, Oaxtepec 1981, Altenberg 1983 and San Francisco 1985. Thus, the conferences in this series are in tended, as far as is practicable, to cover in a broad and balanced fashion both the entire spectrum of theoretical tools developed to tackle the quan tum many-body problem, and their major fields of· application. One of the major aims of the series is to foster the exchange of ideas and techniques among physicists working in such diverse areas of application of many-body theories as nucleon-nucleon interactions, nuclear physics, astronomy, atomic and molecular physics, quantum chemistry, quantum fluids and plasmas, and solid-state and condensed matter physics. A special feature of the present meeting however was that particular attention was paid in the programme to such topics of current interest in solid-state physics as high-temperature superconductors, heavy fermions, the quantum Hall effect, and disorder. A panel discussion was also organised during the conference, under the chair manship of N. W. Ashcroft, to consider the latest developments in the extreme ly rapidly growing field of high-T superconductors.
This is undoubtedly an ambitious book. It aims to provide a wide ranging, yet self-contained and pedagogical introduction to techniques of quantum many-body theory in condensed matter physics, without losing mathematical `rigor' (which I hope means rigour), and with an eye on physical insight, motivation and application. The authors certainly bring plenty of experience to the task, the book having grown out of their graduate lectures at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen over a five year period, with the feedback and refinement this presumably brings. The book is also of course ambitious in another sense, for it competes in the tight market of general graduate/advanced undergraduate texts on many-particle physics. Prospective punters will thus want reasons to prefer it to, or at least give it space beside, well established texts in the field. Subject-wise, the book is a good mix of the ancient and modern, the standard and less so. Obligatory chapters deal with the formal cornerstones of many-body theory, from second quantization, time-dependence in quantum mechanics and linear response theory, to Green's function and Feynman diagrams. Traditional topics are well covered, including two chapters on the electron gas, chapters on phonons and electron–phonon coupling, and a concise account of superconductivity (confined, no doubt judiciously, to the conventional BCS case). Less mandatory, albeit conceptually vital, subjects are also aired. These include a chapter on Fermi liquid theory, from both semi-classical and microscopic perspectives, and a freestanding account of one-dimensional electron gases and Luttinger liquids which, given the enormity of the topic, is about as concise as it could be without sacrificing clarity. Quite naturally, the authors' own interests also influence the choice of material covered. A persistent theme, which brings a healthy topicality to the book, is the area of transport in mesoscopic systems or nanostructures. Two chapters, some fifty pages of the book, are devoted to electron transport in mesoscopic systems; the one on interacting systems is preceded by a brief account of equation of motion techniques–a relative rarity in a general text, used here to provide background to subsequent discussion of the Coulomb blockade in quantum dots. So does it work, and will it find a niche beside other established, wide ranging texts? On the whole I think the answer has to be yes. To begin with, the book is well organised and user-friendly, which must surely appeal to students (and their mentors). The chapters are typically bite-sized and digestible. Each is accompanied by a summary/outlook, which in doing just that attempts to place the specific topic in a wider context, together with a set of problems that illustrate, and in many cases expand substantially on, the basic subject matter. A particularly healthy feature of the book is the extent to which the authors have sought where possible to include physical and/or material applications of basic theory, thereby enlivening old material and enhancing appreciation of the new. The first chapter on the electron gas, for example, introduces the reader to a range of material examples, including 2D heterostructures, carbon nanotubes and quantum dots. A chapter on the formalism of Green's functions takes time out to explain how the single-particle spectral function can be measured by tunnelling spectroscopy, while discussion of impurity scattering and conductivity is refreshed by consideration of weak localization in bulk and mesoscopic systems, and the phenomenon of universal conductance fluctuations. And so on: in a text that could readily descend to the purely formal, the authors have clearly taken seriously the task of incorporating relevant, topical applications of the underlying theory. In a book as wide ranging as this any reviewer is of course bound to perceive the occasional deficiency. I felt for example that some aspects of the discussion of conductance in quantum dots, notably the Coulomb blockade and the Kondo effect, were not quite up to scratch—a touch unbalanced in coverage perhaps (no serious mention of renormalization or scaling, even perturbative), with the odd conceptual error creeping in, and the Kondo effect appearing more mysterious than it really is, possibly in part because consideration of it appears before the chapter on Fermi liquid theory, in which the effect is firmly rooted. But let me not miss the bigger picture: I don't doubt this is a pretty impressive book overall, likely to have broad appeal to budding theorists and adventurous experimentalists, either as a course textbook or—for the slave to garret or lab—as a serious source for self-study. So make a space on your bookshelves.