Venue: Chern Lecture Hall
Class Timings: Wednesdays and Fridays from 1:45 PM to 3:15 PM
First Meeting: 7 January 2025 (Wednesday)
Course Description:
This course will cover the following topics:
(a) Phase transitions and critical phenomena
(b) Dynamics of many-body systems
(c) Non-equilibrium phenomena
Syllabus:
Phase transitions and critical phenomena.
Critical exponents, scaling description, universality.
Ginzburg-Landau theory, mean-field theory, fluctuations.
Kadanoff construction, renormalization group (RG) formalism, RG calculations in real and momentum space.
Dynamics:
Linear response theory: response and correlation functions, fluctuation-dissipation relation, transport coefficients, Kubo formulae.
Hydrodynamic description: Poisson brackets, hydrodynamics of normal fluids and superfluids.
Langevin equation and Fokker-Planck equation, critical dynamics.
Nonequilibrium phenomena:
Kinetics of phase ordering: nucleation, spinodal decomposition, coarsening.
Kinetics of film growth: Kardar-Parisi-Zhang and related equations.
Ageing in glassy systems.
Dynamics of self-propelled systems.
- Chaikin and Lubensky, Principles of Condensed Matter Physics (chapters 3-5,7,8).
- Plischke and Bergersen, Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics.
- Goldenfeld, Lectures on Phase transitions and the Renormalization Group.
- Sethna, Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity.
- Lecture notes of Daniel Arovas (PDF files available at his website)
Course Outcome:
1. This course is designed to prepare students for research in equilibrium and time-dependent statistical physics.
2. The topics covered in this course are expected to make the students familiar with the theoretical methods used in studies of equilibrium and time-dependent properties of many-body systems.
3. This course will provide exposure to several non-equilibrium phenomena of current interest.
Course Evaluation:
Mid-term and final examinations, assignments
- Teacher: Chandan Dasgupta