Physics 880.05 Many-Body Physics:
EFT, RG, and Computation
Autumn, 2009

General Information about 880.05 Many-Body Physics

Course title:

Many-Body Physics: EFT, RG, and Computation

Text:

There is no single text that covers the relevant material with the methods we want to use. So we'll use many texts through handouts and lecture notes. (Most of the texts will be on reserve at the library.)

Prerequisites:

The first-year graduate courses (quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, statistical mechanics in particular; electromagnetic field theory will help but is not essential). Previous exposure to field theory is not assumed. Talk to Prof. Furnstahl if you're concerned about your preparation.

Material:

Although the course catalog title is Nuclear Many-Body Physics and we will have nuclear examples often in mind, the actual course title is "Many-Body Physics: EFT, RG, and Computation". The focus will be on topics in nonrelativistic many-body (primarily many-fermion) theory using the techniques and language of path integral, effective field theory (EFT), and renormalization group (RG) methods. These methods are used in modern nuclear many-body theory but also apply directly to cold atom and condensed matter (and other) systems. A repeated theme will be how to implement many-body techniques on computers. This is not only of practical use, but is a good way to learn or gain a deeper understanding of methods such as path integrals. (Note: This is NOT the Computational Physics course, which is being taught in the Winter quarter.)

Instructors:

Prof. Richard Furnstahl
office: M2048 PRB
email: furnstahl.1@osu.edu or furnstah@mps.ohio-state.edu
phone: 292-4830 (office) or 847-4026 (home)

Dr. Joaquin Drut
office: M2064 PRB
email: jdrut@mps.ohio-state.edu
phone: 247-8146 (office)

Schedule:

Class meets MW from 3:30-5:18pm in Smith 1186. Optional supplementary classes will be scheduled as we go.

Office Hours:

By appointment (asking in class is easiest) and . . .
[to be announced] (Furnstahl)
[to be announced] (Drut)

Grading:

Assigned problems [100%]

Web Pages:

This info: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ntg/880_2009/manybody_info.php

Course home page: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ntg/880_2009/manybody.php