David Tong: Lectures on Statistical Field Theory

These lecture notes provide a detailed introduction to phase transitions and the renormalisation group, aimed at "Part III" (i.e. masters level) students. Lecture notes will become available as the lectures progress.

Content

• 1. From Spins to Fields:  
  Introduction; The Ising Model; Landau Mean Field Theory; Universality; Landau-Ginzburg Theory, The Lower Critical Dimension; The Path Integral, The Free Energy, Correlation Functions, Correlation Length, The Upper Critical Dimension, Self-Consistent Field Approximation, The Analogy with Quantum Field Theory.

Problem Sheets

• Problem Sheet 1:      Mean Field Theory


• Problem Sheet 2:      RG


• Problem Sheet 3:      Symmetries

Statistical Field Theory on the Web

• Statistical Field Theory   by Mehran Kardar at MIT


• Phase Transitions and Collective Phenomena   by Ben Simons at Cambridge


• The Renormalization Group John McGreevy at San Diego


• Advanced Statistical Mechanics   by Martin Grant at McGill

Some Classic Resources

• Nobel Prize Lecture   by Ken Wilson


• Phase Transitions and Collective Phenomena   by Ben Simons at Cambridge


• The Renormalization Group John McGreevy at San Diego


• Advanced Statistical Mechanics   by Martin Grant at McGill