Physics 682
Topics in Condensed Matter Theory:
Quantum Magnetism
Spring 2001
Tuesday & Thursday, 11:20am-12:40pm.
Physics B131
Instructor: Dr. Alexander (Sasha) Abanov,
Assistant Professor
Office: Physics B102
Phone: (631)632-8174
E-mail:
alexandre.abanov@sunysb.edu
Web page:
http://felix.physics.sunysb.edu/~abanov/
There are no exams for this class. The final grade will be
based on the grades for homeworks and on presentations made
at the end of the course. For a list of suggested topics for
these presentations see below.
Topics to be covered
-
Origins of magnetism
-
Spin waves
-
Quantum spins through path integral
-
Spin chains and ladders
-
Effective field theory description of magnets (non-linear sigma-model)
-
Berry phases and theta terms
-
large N expansion
-
RVB, flux phases, spin liquids
-
etc.
Lecture notes (PDF )
Homeworks
-
Homework #1, due Thursday, February 15
(PDF )
-
Homework #2, due Thursday, March 8
(PDF )
-
Homework #3, due Thursday, April 5
(PDF )
-
Homework #4, due Tuesday, April 24
(PDF )
I encourage you to choose your own topics for presentations not from my
list. Please, choose your presentation topic (and discuss it with me)
before Thursday, April 5.
Books
These books are all recommended but not required
-
Assa Auerbach, Interacting Electrons and Quantum Magnetism,
Springer-Verlag, New York, 1994.
-
Eduardo Fradkin, Field Theories of Condensed Matter Systems,
Redwood City, Calif. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1991.
-
A.O. Gogolin, A.A. Nersesyan, A.M. Tsvelik,
Bosonization and Strongly Correlated Systems,
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
-
Robert M. White,
Quantum Theory of Magnetism,
McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1970.
Last updated May 8, 2001