Particle Theory Journal Club

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The Particle Theory Journal Club is a series of weekly talks given by graduate students and aimed at graduate students. This quarter we will be discussing effective field theories.

Students who will be giving talks should register for 2 credits of Ph 582; students who will only be attending should register for 1 credit.

  • Practice talk: Wed 4:30 in B405 (particle theory conference room)
  • Official talk: Fri 2:30 in C421 (seminar room)


Contents

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Wiki

The Condensed Matter Journal Club also has a (vastly inferior) wiki.

In order to edit these pages or to view pages other than the main page one must obtain a Wiki account. It is easy to obtain a Wiki account by simply sending an email to Chris Vermilion (verm@u). Anyone can have a Wiki account -- and we encourage you to get an account -- that's the whole point of Wiki.

To subscribe (or unsubscribe) to the mailing list, click here.

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Winter '10: Critical Phenomena

1/08 - Introduction to Critical Phenomena
  • Raul Briceno
  • Abstract - I will be introducing the relationship between criticality and QFTs, followed by a review of phase transitions and a working definition of criticality. We will be using the mean field theory approach to study continuous phase transitions of magnets near the Curie point. With this example we will be able to illustrate the key features of critical phenomena: critical exponents, order parameter, symmetry breaking universality, etc.
  • Refs -
    • Introduction to the Renormalization Group and to Critical Phenomena by P. Pfeuty and G. Toulouse (Ch. 1 & 2)


1/15 - Basics of Renormalization Group
  • Andrew Lee
  • Abstract - RG is a very successful theory for the study of critical phenomena. I will motivate and define the RG. Then I will go through the exact RG transformation for the 1-D ising model with no external field, and find its RG fixed point (critical point). Two approaches to RG will be featured: Wilsonian method (integration of wavenumber shells) and Kadanoff's original block spin method.
  • Refs -
    • Introduction to the Renormalization Group by Sheng-Keng Ma (Rev Mod Phys 45,589)
    • Introduction to the Renormalization Group and to Critical Phenomena by P. Pfeuty and G. Toulouse (Ch. 4)
    • Statistical Mechanics by R.K. Pathria


1/22 - Scaling and relations between critical exponents
  • Jakub Scholtz
  • Abstract -
  • Refs -


1/29 - Perturbative RG and epsilon expansion
  • Brian Mattern
  • Abstract - I will work through an explicit example of momentum space renormalization for the Gaussian model with a quartic coupling. After deriving some simplified recursive RG equations and studying their behavior, I will show how these can be used to determine the critical exponent that governs the singularity in the correlation length at the critical temperature.
  • Refs -


2/05 - Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in the XY model


2/12 - O(N) models I
  • Kristan Jensen
  • Abstract -
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2/19 - O(N) models II
  • Ethan Thompson
  • Abstract -
  • Refs -


2/26 - Truncated Wilsonian RG
  • Chris Vermilion
  • Abstract -
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3/5 - Borel summation in calculation of critical exponents
  • Alan Jamison
  • Abstract -
  • Refs -


3/12 - Horava's Quantum Gravity
  • Stefan Janiszewski
  • Abstract -
  • Refs -
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Previous Topics

The archives from the old JC webpage have been migrated over; some could still use prettying up.

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Potential Future Topics

Feel free to add to this list! This is a compilation of any serious suggestion for a future topic. Anything in the list of previous topics older than a year or two is also fair game.

  • Dark matter
  • Recent experiment salmagundi
  • B physics (related: flavor physics)
  • Dualities in field theory
  • Quantum field theories in curved spacetime
  • AdS/CFT and condensed matter physics
  • Monte Carlos
  • High-energy QCD phenomenology
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