Advanced Topics in Statistical Mechanics

Prof. J. Cardy - Michaelmas Term 2007

References

There is no single text book which covers these three topics.

• Boltzmann Equation:
  • almost any old-fashioned graduate text on statistical physics has a section on this, for example Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics by F Reif (McGraw-Hill, 1985)
  • a good account, including the relaxtion time approximation, is in Solid State Physics by Ashcroft and Mermin, chapters 13 and 16. (Thanks, Peter Conlon, for pointing out this reference.)
  • a modern and very complete account of this and other transport equations is in Kinetic Theory by RL Liboff (Prentice Hall, 1990)
• Disordered systems and spin glasses:
  • an account of the Harris criterion appears in several introductory texts, for example my own book Scaling and Renormalization in Statistical Physics, Chap. 8 (CUP, 1996)
  • the original paper is AB Harris, J. Phys. C 7, 1671 (1974)
  • the best introductory reference on spin glasses and the replica method seems to be Spin Glasses by Fischer and Hertz (CUP, 1991)
  • See also Spin Glass Theory and Beyond by Mezard, Parisi and Virasoro (World Scientific, 1987)
• Kosterlitz-Thouless transition
  • The account in the lectures largely follows my book (above) Chapter 6.
  • D. Nelson, in Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena Vol. 7, Domb and Lebowitz eds. (Academic, 1983).
  • A seminal and readable paper is by Jose, Kirkpatrick, Kadanoff and Nelson, Phys. Rev. B 16, 1217 (1977).

Last updated 27/11/07.