This book comprises the lectures of a two-semester course on quantum field theory, presented in a quite informal and personal manner. The course starts with relativistic one-particle systems, and develops the basics of quantum field theory with an analysis on the representations of the Poincare group. Canonical quantization is carried out for scalar, fermion, Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories. Covariant quantization of gauge theories is also carried out with a detailed description of the BRST symmetry. The Higgs phenomenon and the standard model of electroweak interactions are also developed systematically. Regularization and (BPHZ) renormalization of field theories as well as gauge theories are discussed in detail, leading to a derivation of the renormalization group equation. In addition, two chapters - one on the Dirac quantization of constrained systems and another on discrete symmetries - are included for completeness, although these are not covered in the two-semester course.This second edition includes two new chapters, one on Nielsen identities and the other on basics of global supersymmetry. It also includes two appendices, one on fermions in arbitrary dimensions and the other on gauge invariant potentials and the Fock-Schwinger gauge.

Nuclear structure Physics connects to some of our fundamental questions about the creation of universe and its basic constituents. At the same time, precise knowledge on the subject has lead to develop many important tools of human kind such as proton therapy, radioactive dating etc. This book contains chapters on some of the crucial and trending research topics in nuclear structure, including the nuclei lying on the extremes of spin, isospin and mass. A better theoretical understanding of these topics is important beyond the confines of the nuclear structure community. Additionally, the book will showcase the applicability and success of the different nuclear effective interaction parameters near the drip line, where hints for level reordering have already been seen, and where one can test the isospin-dependence of the interaction. The book offers comprehensive coverage of the most essential topics, including: * Nuclear Structure of Nuclei at or Near Drip-Lines * Synthesis challenges and properties of Superheavy nuclei * Nuclear Structure and Nuclear models - Ab-initio calculations, cluster models, Shell-model/DSM, RMF, Skyrme * Shell Closure, Magicity and other novel features of nuclei at extremes * Structure of Toroidal, Bubble Nuclei, halo and other exotic nuclei These topics are not only very interesting from theoretical nuclear physics perspective but are also quite complimentary for ongoing nuclear physics experimental program worldwide. It is hoped that the book chapters written by experienced and well known researchers/experts will be helpful for the master students, graduate students and researchers and serve as a standard & uptodate research reference book on the topics covered.

The book contains seven refereed research papers on locally compact quantum groups and groupoids by leading experts in the respective fields. These contributions are based on talks presented on the occasion of the meeting between mathematicians and theoretical physicists held in Strasbourg from February 21 to February 23, 2002. Topics covered are: various constructions of locally compact quantum groups and their multiplicative unitaries; duality theory for locally compact quantum groups; combinatorial quantization of flat connections associated with SL(2,c); quantum groupoids, especially coming from Depth 2 Extensions of von Neumann algebras, C*-algebras and Rings. Many mathematical results are motivated by problems in theoretical physics. Historical remarks set the results presented in perspective. Directed at research mathematicians and theoretical physicists as well as graduate students, the volume will give an overview of a field of research in which great progress has been achieved in the last few years, with new ties to many other areas of mathematics and physics.

Essential mathematical tools for the study of modern quantum theory.

Linear Algebra for Quantum Theory offers an excellent survey of those aspects of set theory and the theory of linear spaces and their mappings that are indispensable to the study of quantum theory. Unlike more conventional treatments, this text postpones its discussion of the binary product concept until later chapters, thus allowing many important properties of the mappings to be derived without it.

The book begins with a thorough exploration of set theory fundamentals, including mappings, cardinalities of sets, and arithmetic and theory of complex numbers. Next is an introduction to linear spaces, with coverage of linear operators, eigenvalue and the stability problem of linear operators, and matrices with special properties.

Material on binary product spaces features self-adjoint operators in a space of indefinite metric, binary product spaces with a positive definite metric, properties of the Hilbert space, and more. The final section is devoted to axioms of quantum theory formulated as trace algebra. Throughout, chapter-end problem sets help reinforce absorption of the material while letting readers test their problem-solving skills.

Ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in theoretical and computational chemistry and physics, Linear Algebra for Quantum Theory provides the mathematical means necessary to access and understand the complex world of quantum theory.

Despite its long history and stunning experimental successes, the mathematical foundation of perturbative quantum field theory is still a subject of ongoing research. This book aims at presenting some of the most recent advances in the field, and at reflecting the diversity of approaches and tools invented and currently employed. Both leading experts and comparative newcomers to the field present their latest findings, helping readers to gain a better understanding of not only quantum but also classical field theories. Though the book offers a valuable resource for mathematicians and physicists alike, the focus is more on mathematical developments. This volume consists of four parts: The first Part covers local aspects of perturbative quantum field theory, with an emphasis on the axiomatization of the algebra behind the operator product expansion. The second Part highlights Chern-Simons gauge theories, while the third examines (semi-)classical field theories. In closing, Part 4 addresses factorization homology and factorization algebras.

This book summarizes recent developments in the research area of quantum gravity phenomenology. A series of short and nontechnical essays lays out the prospects of various experimental possibilities and their current status. Finding observational evidence for the quantization of space-time was long thought impossible. In the last decade however, new experimental design and technological advances have changed the research landscape and opened new perspectives on quantum gravity. Formerly dominated by purely theoretical constructions, quantum gravity now has a lively phenomenology to offer. From high precision measurements using macroscopic quantum oscillators to new analysis methods of the cosmic microwave background, no stone is being left unturned in the experimental search for quantum gravity. This book sheds new light on the connection of astroparticle physics with the quantum gravity problem. Gravitational waves and their detection are covered. It illustrates findings from the interconnection between general relativity, black holes and Planck stars. Finally, the return on investment in quantum-gravitation research is illuminated. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers entering the field.

This thesis offers a fascinating journey through various non-perturbative aspects of Conformal Theories, in particular focusing on the Conformal Bootstrap Programme and its extensions to theories with various degrees of symmetry. Because of the preeminent role of Conformal Theories in Nature, as well as the great generality of the results here obtained, this analysis directly applies to many different areas of research. The content of this thesis is certainly relevant for the physics community as a whole and this relevance is well motivated and discussed along the various chapters of this work. The work is self-contained and starts with an original introduction to conformal theories, defects in such theories and how they lead to constraints on data and an extension of the bootstrap programme. This situation is often realized by critical systems with impurities, topological insulators, or - in the high-energy context - by Wilson and 't Hooft operators. The thesis continues with original research results of the author, including supersymmetric extensions. These results may be relevant non only in the high energy physics context - where supersymmetry is required for the theory to be consistent - but also for condensed matter systems that enjoy supersymmetry emergence at long distances.

Almost ?fteen years later, and there is little change in our motivation. Mathem- ical physics of quantum systems remains a lively subject of intrinsic interest with numerous applications, both actual and potential. Intheprefacetothe?rsteditionwehavedescribedtheoriginofthisbookrooted at the beginning in a course of lectures. With this fact in mind, we were naturally pleased to learn that the volume was used as a course text in many points of the world and we gladly accepted the o?er ofSpringer Verlag which inherited the rights from our original publisher, to consider preparation of a second edition. It was our ambition to bring the reader close to the places where real life dwells, and therefore this edition had to be more than a corrected printing. The ?eld is developing rapidly and since the ?rst edition various new subjects have appeared; as a couple of examples let us mention quantum computing or the major progress in theinvestigationofrandomSchr] odingeroperators.Thereare, however, goodsources intheliteraturewherethereadercanlearnabouttheseandothernewdevelopments.

This book introduces mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers to a new, coherent approach to theory and interpretation of quantum physics, in which classical and quantum thinking live peacefully side by side and jointly fertilize the intuition. The formal, mathematical core of quantum physics is cleanly separated from the interpretation issues. The book demonstrates that the universe can be rationally and objectively understood from the smallest to the largest levels of modeling. The thermal interpretation featured in this book succeeds without any change in the theory. It involves one radical step, the reinterpretation of an assumption that was virtually never questioned before - the traditional eigenvalue link between theory and observation is replaced by a q-expectation link: Objective properties are given by q-expectations of products of quantum fields and what is computable from these. Averaging over macroscopic spacetime regions produces macroscopic quantities with negligible uncertainty, and leads to classical physics. - Reflects the actual practice of quantum physics. - Models the quantum-classical interface through coherent spaces. - Interprets both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. - Eliminates probability and measurement from the foundations. - Proposes a novel solution of the measurement problem.

The present monograph is devoted to the principal problems of quantum mechanics and is based on the conception first stated in my course on 'Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics'. The scope and purpose of the above course did not allow some principal questions to be brought out as fully as they deserved, and besides, some important points were only very recently developed to a sufficient extent. This refers especially to the analysis of the action of the measuring instrument, whose dual role as an analyser of a quantum ensemble and as a detector of individual events was insufficiently elucidated. The reader will find that the present monograph is concerned more with theoretical physics than with philosophy. However, I have never separated Weltanschauung from science (and particularly theoretical physics) so that the philosophical implications are also discussed, justi fying publication in the philosophical series. In conclusion, I should like to thank the publisher and the translator, whose initiative and effort have made it possible for the book to reach the English-speaking reader."

The authors examine topics in modern physics and offer a unitary and original treatment of the fundamental problems of the dynamics of physical systems, as well as a description of the nuclear matter within a framework of general relativity. They show that some physical phenomena studied at two different resolution scales (e.g. microscale, cosmological scale), apparently with no connection between them, become compatible by means of the operational procedures, acting either as some "hidden" symmetries, or harmonic-type mappings. The book is addressed to the students, researchers and university/high school teachers working in the fields of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Written by leading experimentalist Warwick P. Bowen and prominent theoretician Gerard J. Milburn, Quantum Optomechanics discusses modern developments in this novel field from experimental and theoretical standpoints. The authors share their insight on a range of important topics, including optomechanical cooling and entanglement; quantum limits on measurement precision and how to overcome them via back-action evading measurements; feedback control; single photon and nonlinear optomechanics; optomechanical synchronization; coupling of optomechanical systems to microwave circuits and two-level systems, such as atoms and superconducting qubits; and optomechanical tests of gravitational decoherence. The book first introduces the basic physics of quantum harmonic oscillators and their interactions with their environment. It next discusses the radiation pressure interaction between light and matter, deriving common Hamiltonians used in quantum optomechanics. It then focuses on the linearized regime of quantum optomechanics before exploring scenarios where the simple linearized picture of quantum optomechanics no longer holds. The authors move on to hybrid optomechanical systems in which the canonical quantum optomechanical system is coupled to another quantum object. They explain how an alternative form of a hybrid optomechanical system leads to the phenomenon of synchronization. They also consider the impact of quantum optomechanics on tests of gravitational physics.

Get First-Hand Insight from a Contributor to the Standard Model of Particle Physics Written by an award-winning former director-general of CERN and one of the world's leading experts on particle physics, Electroweak Interactions explores the concepts that led to unification of the weak and electromagnetic interactions. It provides the fundamental elements of the theory of compact Lie groups and their representations, enabling a basic understanding of the role of flavor symmetry in particle physics. Understand Conceptual Elements of the Theory of Elementary Particles The book begins with the identification of the weak hadronic current with the isotopic spin current, Yang-Mills theory, and the first electroweak theory of Glashow. It discusses spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry and a local symmetry, covering the Goldstone theorem, Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, and the theory of Weinberg and Salam. The author then describes the theory of quarks, quark mixing, the Cabibbo angle, the Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani (GIM) mechanism, the theory of Kobayashi and Maskawa, six quark flavors, and CP violation. Delve into Experimental Tests and Unresolved Problems The author goes on to explore some phenomenological topics, such as neutral current interactions of neutrinos and CP violation in the neutral K-meson system. He also highlights how flavor-changing neutral current processes have emerged as probes to reveal the presence of new phenomena at energies not yet accessible with particle accelerators. The book concludes with an explanation of the expected properties of the Higgs boson and the methods adopted for its search. The predictions are also compared with relevant experimental results. View the author's first book in this collection: Relativistic Quantum Mechanics: An Introduction to Relativistic Quantum Fields.

Providing a systematic introduction to the techniques which are fundamental to quantum field theory, this book pays special attention to the use of these techniques in a wide variety of areas, including ordinary quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics in the second-quantized formulation, relativistic quantum field theory, Euclidean field theory, quantum statistics at finite temperature, and the classical statistics of nonideal gas and spin systems. The extended chapter on variational methods and functional Legendre transformations contains completely original material.

Written by world-leading experts in particle physics, this new book from Luciano Maiani and Omar Benhar, with contributions from the late Nicola Cabibbo, is based on Feynman's path integrals. Key elements of gauge theories are described-Feynman diagrams, gauge-fixing, Faddeev-Popov ghosts-as well as renormalization in Quantum Electrodynamics. Quarks and QCD interactions are introduced. Renormalization group and high momentum behaviour of the coupling constants is discussed in QED and QCD, with asymptotic freedom derived at one-loop. These concepts are related to the Higgs boson and models of grand unification. "... an excellent introduction to the quantum theory of gauge fields and their applications to particle physics. ... It will be an excellent book for the serious student and a good reference for the professional practitioner. Let me add that, scattered through the pages, we can find occasional traces of Nicola Cabibbo's style." -John Iliopoulos, CNRS-Ecole Normale Superieure " ... The volume ends with an illuminating description of the expectation generated by the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, combined with the lack of evidence for super-symmetric particles in the mass range 0.6-1 TeV." -Arturo Menchaca-Rocha, FinstP, Professor of Physics, Mexico's National Autonomous University, Former President of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, Presidential Advisor "...The reader is masterfully guided through the subtleties of the quantum field theory and elementary particle physics from simple examples in Quantum Mechanics to salient details of modern theory." -Mikhail Voloshin, Professor of Physics, University of Minnesota

Some major developments of physics in the last three decades are addressed by highly qualified specialists in different specific fields. They include renormalization problems in QFT, vacuum energy fluctuations and the Casimir effect in different configurations, and a wealth of applications. A number of closely related issues are also considered. The cosmological applications of these theories play a crucial role and are at the very heart of the book; in particular, the possibility to explain in a unified way the whole history of the evolution of the Universe: from primordial inflation to the present day accelerated expansion. Further, a description of the mathematical background underlying many of the physical theories considered above is provided. This includes the uses of zeta functions in physics, as in the regularization problems in QFT already mentioned, specifically in curved space-time, and in Casimir problems as.

Perturbation theory is a powerful tool for solving a wide variety of problems in applied mathematics, a tool particularly useful in quantum mechanics and chemistry. Although most books on these subjects include a section offering an overview of perturbation theory, few, if any, take a practical approach that addresses its actual implementation Introduction to Perturbation Theory in Quantum Mechanics does. It collects into a single source most of the techniques for applying the theory to the solution of particular problems. Concentrating on problems that allow exact analytical solutions of the perturbation equations, the book resorts to numerical results only when necessary to illustrate and complement important features of the theory. The author also compares different methods by applying them to the same models so that readers clearly understand why one technique may be preferred over another. Demonstrating the application of similar techniques in quantum and classical mechanics, Introduction to Perturbation Theory in Quantum Mechanics reveals the underlying mathematics in seemingly different problems. It includes many illustrative examples that facilitate the understanding of theoretical concepts, and provides a source of ideas for many original research projects.

Starting from basic principles, the book covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from Heisenberg, Schroedinger, second quantization, density matrix and path integral formulations of quantum mechanics, to applications that are (or will be) corner stones of present and future technologies. The emphasis is on spin waves, quantum information, recent tests of quantum physics and decoherence. The book provides a large amount of information without unbalancing the flow of the main ideas by laborious detail.

The present volume has its source in the CAP-CRM summer school on "Particles and Fields" that was held in Banff in the summer of 1994. Over the years, the Division of Theoretical Physics of the Canadian Associa- tion of Physicists (CAP) has regularly sponsored such schools on various theoretical and experimental topics. In 1994, the Centre de Recherches Mathematiques (CRM) lent its support to the event. This institute, located in Montreal, is one of Canada's national research centers in the mathe- matical sciences. Its mandate includes the organization of scientific events across Canada and since 1994 the CRM has been holding a yearly summer school in Banff as part of its thematic program. The summer school, whose lectures are collected here, has thus become a tradition. The focus of the school was integrable theories, matrix models, statistical systems, field theory and its applications to condensed matter physics, as well as certain aspects of algebra, geometry, and topology. This covers some of the most significant advances in modern theoretical physics. The present volume updates and expands these lectures and reflects the high pedagogical level of the school. The first chapter by E. Corrigan describes some of the remarkable fea- tures of the integrable Toda field theories which are associated with affine Dynkin diagrams. The second chapter by J. Feldman, H. Knorrer, D. Leh- mann, and E.

This book explores critical phenomena in highly correlated quantum matter. Specifically, quantum antiferromagnets, magnon Bose condensates, and systems exhibiting deconfined quantum criticality are considered. The book's main achievement is the incorporation of both quantum and statistical fluctuations into a quantum field theoretic treatment of critical phenomena. This yields significant new insights into an abundance of problems, positions them in a much more general context, and offers an unprecedented power to analyze experimental and numerical data and predict new effects. Further, a major result and overarching theme is the exploration of the scale-dependent coupling constant - an effect known in quantum chromodynamics as "asymptotic freedom." The book provides the first analysis to reveal asymptotic freedom in the quantum magnetism context, and discusses many other manifestations. Another significant result concerns the development of a consistent theoretical framework that resolves a long-standing inconsistency in the theory of Bose condensation. Using the approach developed here, two new universality classes are subsequently identified. A final major result addresses the exotic scenario of deconfined quantum criticality. Within this framework, the book predicts the Bose condensation of particles with half-integer spin - the first- ever made in this regard. In closing, a smoking gun criterion to test for this exotic condensate is established.

This book presents research contributions focussing on the introduction of contemporary physics topics - mainly, but not exclusively, quantum physics - into high school currciula. Despite the important advances and discoveries in quantum physics and relativity which have revolutionized our views of nature and our everyday lives, the presence of these topics in high school physics education is still lacking. In this book physics education researchers report on the teaching and learning of quantum physics from different perspectives and discuss the design and use of different pedagogical approaches and educational pathways. There is still much debate as to what content is appropriate at high school level as well what pedagogical approaches and strategies should be adopted to support student learning. Currently there is a greater focus on how to teach modern physics at the high school level rather than classical physics. However, teachers still lack experience and availability of appropriate teaching and learning materials to support the coherent integration of Quantum Physics in high school curricula. All of the 19 papers presented in this book discuss innovative approaches for enhancing physics education in schools.