PY 895 RG and Disorder,   Fall 2024

 

This is the website for PY 895, Advanced Topics in Statistical Physics: Disordered Systems and the Renormalization Group. This website will be updated with scanned hand written lecture notes and homework assignments.


General course information:
We meet TH 9:30-10:45 in PRB 148.
Office hours Th 11-noon in SCI 323

Syllabus pdf .


Textbooks worth reading:

Renormalization Group:

  • Creswick, Richard J., Horacio A. Farach, and Charles P. Poole. Introduction to renormalization group methods in physics (out-of-print) but pdfs are floating around on internet. Please contact me in class if you have trouble locating one.
  • Cardy, John. Scaling and renormalization in statisticalphysics. Vol. 5. Cambridge university press, 1996.
  • Goldenfeld, Nigel. Lectures on phase transitions and the renormalization group . CRC Press, 2018.
  • Kadanoff, Leo P. Statistical physics: statics, dynamics and renormalization. World Scientific, 2000.

Disordered Systems

  • Mézard, Marc, Giorgio Parisi, and Miguel Angel Virasoro. Spin glass theory and beyond: An Introduction to the Replica Method and Its Applications. Vol. 9. World Scientific Publishing Company, 1987.
  • Nishimori, Hidetoshi. Statistical physics of spin glasses and information processing: an introduction. No. 111. Clarendon Press, 2001.
  • Amit, Daniel J., and Daniel J. Amit. Modeling brain function: The world of attractor neural networks. Cambridge university press, 1989.
  • Mezard, Marc, and Andrea Montanari. Information, physics, and computation. Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • Stein, Daniel L. and Newman, Charles M. Spin Glasses and Complexity. Princeton University Press, 2013.

Homeworks
Homework 1 pdf. Due Sept 17.
Homework 2 pdf. Due Oct 1.
Homework 3 pdf. Due Nov 5.
Homework 4 pdf. (needs another look for typos, please report any you see). Due Nov 26.

Readings and notes
Weeks 1:

Readings:
Notes:

Weeks 2:

Readings:
  • Creswick Chapter 1, Sections 3.6, 3.7
Notes:

Weeks 3:

Readings:
  • Creswick: 3.6, 3.7. Chapter 2; Strogatz Non-linear Dynamics and Chaos 3rd edition, Chapter 10
Notes:
  • Lecture 4: RG of Sol-Gel Transition
  • Lecture 5: RG of Period Doubling Transition to Chaos
Weeks 4:

Readings:
  • Shankar Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter: An Introduction Chapter 12.
  • Goldenfeld Chapters 7,8
  • Optional: Landau's original phase transition paper (really worth reading!).
Notes:

Weeks 5:

Readings:
  • Shankar Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter: An Introduction Chapter 12.
  • Creswick Chapter 4.
  • Widom's classic 1965 scaling paper.
Notes:

Weeks 6:

Readings:
  • Chaikin and Lubensky Principles of Condensed Matter Physics Sections 5.5-5.8.
  • Shankar Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter: An Introduction Chapter 12.
  • Creswick Sections 5.1-5.2, 7.1-7.3, 8.7
  • Kadanoff Chapter 12-14
Notes:
  • Lecture 8: Real-space RG of Ising Model
  • Lecture 9: Momentum space RG I: Gaussian Fixed Point
Weeks 7-8:

Readings:
  • Chaikin and Lubensky Principles of Condensed Matter Physics Sections 5.5-5.8.
  • Shankar Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter: An Introduction Chapter 12.
  • Creswick Sections 5.1-5.2, 7.1-7.3, 8.7
  • Kadanoff Chapter 12-14
Notes:
  • Lecture 10: Momentum space RG II: Epsilon Expansion
Weeks 9:

Readings:
  • Mile Stoudenmire excellent directory of resources. Highlights include: the video lectures of Garnet Chan, video lectures of Uli Schollwoeck, and 1.5 hour tutorial by Miles available here; Also recommended are Uli Schollwoeck (DMRG in the Age of Matrix Product States).
  • We will follow these paper in class on Entanglement Renormalization and this and briefly discuss this paper.
Notes:

Weeks 10:

Readings:
  • Lubchenko and Wolynes review of structural glasses
Notes:

Weeks 11:

Readings:
  • Les Houches Lectures on Ecology Chapter 8
  • Potters and Bouchard. A First Course in Random Matrix Theory (Chapters 1-4)
Notes: